Thinking About Prayer: Part 2

Imagine that you've just upset or offended someone you know or love. You've made them mad. And now you feel guilty and sorry for what you've done. Maybe you've said something you shouldn't say to your wife. Or perhaps you mouthed off to a co-worker, a friend, or someone at church who really gets on your nerves. Both your common sense and good manners dissolved in an instant only to be replaced by a short temper and thoughtless words. Chances are, the very next conversation will at least begin awkwardly.

Or maybe think of it this way. You've neglected to keep in touch with a close friend, someone you intended to call or e-mail. It's been awhile since you've seen them or spoken to them, and you feel guilty for this. And the guilt you feel leads to further neglect of the relationship. You're afraid of what the next encounter will be like, so you do your best to avoid an encounter altogether. You really don't want to face that person. Fearing what they think of you and what they might say if you finally resume contact, you put it off. Procrastination becomes habit.

Often when this sort of thing happens, the next conversation or encounter isn't as bad as our anticipation of it. Whoever the other party is, they end up being much more accepting than you expected, than your fears led you to believe they'd be. Then you feel rather silly for having put off getting in touch or for procrastinating reconciliations and apologies.

I got thinking about all of this because sometimes I avoid prayer. Either I simply choose to jump into whatever work or chores lay in front of me or I neglect it because I've already been avoiding it for awhile. And why is that? I realized today that it's because, despite all my knowledge that tells me precisely the opposite, I fear that God is mad at me and won't hear my prayers, that my very avoidance of praying for a couple of days will mean God's not going to listen once I do finally get around to it and begin talking to him again.

I associate worries we all have with human relationships and superimpose them onto my relationship with God. That we all do this in one way or another at one time or another is no surprise. We can all fall prey to judging our relationship with God in the same way that we judge our relationship with other people. There are people, for instance, who question the title of "Father" for God since so many people have negative associations with their earthly fathers and, so the argument runs, will never be able to see God as a good and loving Father. The very idea of fatherhood is so abhorrent because of their poor and sometimes even tragic experiences that it forever taints a person's ability to see God as Father. In lesser ways this also happens. We generalize from our most common and closest relationships.

But God is not human. He is not subject to the whims of mood and appetite and doesn't relate to us haphazardly depending on the weather or any other temporary conditions. Even if I haven't prayed for a couple of days, God is not mad. He might very well be saddened. God wants us to pray. This is his will for us. But whatever he makes of our difficulties in prayer, our God is not the sort who will shut his ears to us because of them. This is because, despite the poor reflection of this in the world around us, he is a loving, heavenly Father.

So given the God we believe in, one revealed in Jesus Christ, I need not fear his retribution or rejection. Even if I have failed to come to him in prayer, failed to open myself in heart and mind to his presence by inviting him more fully into my life, failed to lift up the needs of my loved ones and brothers and sisters, God is not, like some people when we fail them, going to respond to me out of spite. He is ever loving and faithfully kind, merciful and good. If anything, I can always run to him, no matter how long I may have been running in the other direction.

I find it astounding at how easy it is to fall prey to misconceptions of God after years of reading and studying the Scriptures, going to church and being in ministry, and even after having lots of positive examples of God's good and kind character surrounding me with love and support. How feeble-minded I can be at times to judge God--often unconsciously--by the worst and most feared aspects of our human relationships: rejection, judgement, and failure. If anything, such a tendency to bad lived-out theology throws into sharp relief my own desperate need for God and for communing with him in prayer. In other words, the very fears I have about approaching God, knowing their source are not from him, should propel me into his arms rather than drive me away. I can only pray that this would be so. I pray the same is true for you.

Location, Location, Location!

Our church is sort hard to find for some. If you don't know the area well, you might just get lost while on your way. And it's also on a street that's out of the way, not a main thoroughfare. We don't get a lot of drive-by traffic. In order to direct people, we do have a small street sign marked with an arrow pointing, with relative accuracy, toward our church. However, our sign is in desperate need of replacement, something I hope will happen this spring. The significance of signage is perhaps worthy of its own post. That's not my main point today. Rather, I'm thinking of that perennial catch-phrase used to express the value of land and real estate: location, location, location.

Once when talking about our church with another pastor, he commented that our church is actually in a terrible location. It should instead be at the bottom of the road that leads into our community where people would immediately see it rather than in a spot that requires a handful of left turns. As it is, our church lacks a certain obvious visibility. It's not about blinking and missing it. It's more about being situated where even if you keep your eyes peeled you're just not likely to drive by casually on the road where our church is.

Some churches, in order to improve their ministry, will take steps to improve their location. I know of one church which is currently engaged in such a re-location project. But of course not all churches have either the calling or the ability to take such measures. For some churches, ours included, our location, whatever it may be, is something with which we simply have to contend.

And this is true of life as a whole. Location defines us. We are where we are. And oftentimes we can't simply pack and move someplace else. The specificity of our location is the result of years of decisions, unforeseen circumstances, the unseen hand of God and, hopefully, all our honest if flawed attempts to listen to and follow God.

Take me, for instance. What is my location? I am geographically located in a small LSD (local service district) where I currently serve as the full-time pastor of a small, rural Baptist church. The area in which I live is not even large enough to be considered a village or town. We have no local municipality. I hadn't even heard of this place before being called as pastor! And of course my being located here has to do with not only with physical location, but a whole plethora of factors.

One of these factors in my locatedness is that I am also married. That I am not a single male also locates me in a specific place. That I am married played a role in my accepting the call as pastor both here and in my previous church. That I am married plays in a huge role in any future locatedness--my wife and I have to be in agreement about any major decisions regarding moving or a change of ministry. Yet another factor is that I am also a father. We have a young daughter who is roughly three and a half years old. This also plays a powerful determining role. Being a parent both is part of my locatedness and determines my locatedness. So family plays a huge role in my present location.

My own personal background--emotional, intellectual, relational, spiritual, etc.--also plays a huge role in my locatedness. Who I am has been shaped by a variety of influences. I am, yes, who God has made me (and continues to make me!), but I am also a product of my parents, family members, childhood experiences, schooling, encounters with people odd and normal, and in fact all of life. I can’t always articulate it precisely, but I can often sense layers of experience playing a role in present day decisions. Simply put, it's like when someone says to you, "You're just like your father!" And that's only one example.

Try as we may, we cannot entirely escape the various layers of locatedness that accumulate over time like sediment to make us what we are. Some aspects of our locatedness may be nothing more than fossils, but when excavated and revealed afresh by a present crisis or major life change or even the stress of everyday life they come to life again. Who hasn't been surprised by how we can find ourselves in a situation where we begin to think, speak, and act as if we were still that nervous middle school kid?

Much of life seems to be about dealing and negotiating with our locatedness. As I said, we are where we are. And if we can't move to another, more pleasant location, then we have to live with our current surroundings.

What I am getting at with all of this? Why have I recklessly abandoned proper grammar to make up a word like ‘locatedness’? Well, when you think of that phrase, ‘location, location, location,’ the obvious implication is that the where of where you are located makes all the difference. Whether your home is located in an upscale suburban neighbourhood or in a poor rural community will determine the price of your home. It indicates value. If you want to be somewhere worth being, then move to a better location.

Sometimes we want to change the particulars of our present location in life. Perhaps our job is unsatisfying. What about that unexplored career path? Do we wish we had made different decisions along the way? Or maybe being a parent is more stressful than we had anticipated. It could be that the kids we had weren’t part of our original plan. We thought we knew our husband or wife better when we married them. Possibly we were hoping for more material prosperity or at least more creature comforts. All in all, life is hardly perfect. Our location is not ideal. And we sometimes entertain thoughts of what re-location might be like.

But, to point out the obvious, we are where we are. Whatever our present location, that’s what we have to contend with. We can’t just quit our jobs, dump the wife, and lose the kids; though many have used such tactics to change their location. Rarely is it this simple, however. And rarely is this a good idea (Well, quitting a job may sometimes be justified). Often such a move is a poor attempt at escapism, or of loosing ourselves from unpleasant constraints in life. As they say, the grass is always greener . . .

But the fact of the matter is all locations have value at least insofar as all locations have redeemable value. That is to say, the God of the Bible is a God who is at work not only on a grand cosmic scale that encompasses galaxies and solar systems, but one who is also at work on our street, down our lane, and in our neighbourhoods and homes. Wherever we find ourselves, there is nowhere we can be where God cannot work to redeem. This means if our marriage is in trouble, God can work redemption there; if our kids are out of control, God can work redemption there; and if we don’t like our job or are struggling with what our job ought to be, God can work redemption there. So in the same moment as I find myself daydreaming or even seriously contemplating re-location, God wants me to know that he can carry out some renovations right where we are, that he can produce something of value even at our current location.

We know this because God himself acquired locatedness in the incarnation, in that most miraculous of moments when eternity entered time, when infinity became bound by limited dimensions. We know that God places eternal value on our present location because he had for a time his own location in space and time. When the Son of God became flesh and blood, the particulars of our lives, the various levels of our locatedness, took on inestimable value. This is often what is called "the scandal of particularity," the idea, offensive to many, that the truth of God revealed in Jesus is true because of its very particularity, specificity, and locatedness. Most would rather see the truth of God as revealed in Jesus as a specific instance of a more general truth that can also be seen elsewhere--this is not the only way God has revealed his truth, but one of many--than consider the possibility that only in Jesus, this particular instance of divine revelation, is the truth of God made known fully and completely. Yet this is what we as Christians believe.

And the particularity of the incarnation means that God takes seriously the here and now of where we are. Whatever our location, God cares. So whereas sometimes we'd prefer a God who would graciously remove us from specific circumstances and lift us up beyond the often messy details of our lives, instead we have a God who--according to the incarnation--"moved into the neighborhood." We have a God who instead enters into our circumstances and is present to us in the midst of them. That God is like this means that while sometimes a move to a new location is a wise decision, often God wants to save us right where we are.

So our church is not located in an ideal spot. Does that mean for God to use us to reach the surrounding community we have to move to another location in the community, that unless we do we are consigned to irrelevancy? Or is it more true to say that no church is located in an ideal spot, that our placement can never be perfect, but that despite this, God can still work miracles, wonders, and redemption in our midst anyway? While it may be true that if our church were located in a more visible spot that we might get more drive-by traffic, more frequent visitors, and have a stronger presence, I also think that we rely too much on the world's way of thinking if we reduce the potential of our church's impact to those factors. Relying too much on the world's way of thinking also makes light of God's power. Certainly he is not limited by what we define as limitations! And certainly God is not limited by location, whether that of our church or our own. To my thinking, then, if God is into real estate, then every location has value, value that comes from and is produced by him, not by any street address or spot on a map. It's all about location, all right, but it is God and not us who ultimately determines the redeemable value of any location.

Everything is Green!!

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. I was never one for celebrating this particular ‘holy-day,’ but my wife loves to take such occasions as opportunities to do special things that perhaps she wouldn’t do on more routine days of the year. So, in that spirit, our daughter woke up to a green breakfast: first, homemade bread made green by food colouring; second, green sprinkles to make that bread even more of a treat; and third, milk also made green. That our little girl’s favourite colour is green made this even more special—and that’s why she’s also wearing green clothes today. So there you have it--commemorating the feast day of an important Christian saint and missionary with odd coloured toast and milk! But if you really want to know more about Saint Patrick, this here will give you a start!

On Palm Sunday . . .

Yesterday was Palm Sunday. It’s the last Sunday before Easter and officially kicks off what many churches refer to as holy week—the last week of Jesus’ life before his death and eventual resurrection. And in previous years as a pastor I’ve never made the effort to recognize Palm Sunday. I’m not sure why. When I was growing up Catholic we celebrated Palm Sunday with the distributing and waving of palm branches. But throughout all of my years as a Baptist I can only recall one occasion when Palm Sunday was actually recognized and celebrated, even if not with palm branches. So I sought, this year, to rectify this.

Now the whole deal with Palm Sunday is that it commemorates the occasion of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem just prior to his Passion—his arrest, trial, beating, and crucifixion. In fact, his passion is his reason for entering Jerusalem. He knows what’s coming. And he still, as Scripture says, set his face toward Jerusalem. And the reason it’s called Palm Sunday is that the gospel accounts tell us that as Jesus was entering Jerusalem on a donkey, people broke off branches and laid them on the road as Jesus was proceeding in. And they sang, “Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!” Though the crowd of disciples and other people was likely small, this unlikely contingent of followers were proclaiming Jesus as the promised Davidic king who would also be the Messiah. No doubt they were expecting not humiliation and death for their king but glory and victory as he triumphed over their Roman oppressors. But this was not to be.

So with all that in mind, I thought that this year we ought to celebrate Palm Sunday more explicitly. Much of our attention gets divided between Christmas and Easter and very little attention is usually given to the lesser Christian feasts or holidays. While I love celebrating these other occasions, I’m glad we took the time to put more effort into Palm Sunday this year. We had palm branches for everyone in the congregation and several of the kids in our church danced to the front of the church at the beginning of our service while we sang “Hail Jesus! You’re My King” to hand out the branches. We sang songs that focused on Jesus as our king and his entrance into Jerusalem. And then when we sang “Hosanna” we invited people, if comfortable in doing so, to wave their branches while we sang.

Sometimes I think joy needs to be more concretely expressed and lived. I know that Christian joy is deep and doesn’t always show up in effusive expressions of jubilation but I think it’s also true that we can benefit from the sheer physical gesture of waving branches while praising Jesus. The spiritual and physical are not separate. And even if we don’t naturally express our joy outwardly so that others can see, taking even a moment to practice such an expression of joy can teach us and help us to understand the deeper meaning of celebration and joy, something which the coming of our king and Messiah ought to evoke.

Of course, we also celebrated Palm Sunday because I have been preaching a sermon series that made it even more apropos. This was the third week in my series, “Who do you say I am?” This is the question Jesus asked his disciples just before he first told them that he had to suffer and die. And it’s a question he asks each of us. On our answer hangs our present lives and our eternal destiny. So we’ve been looking at different aspects of that question’s answer: Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is the Suffering Servant and, yesterday, Jesus is the King. On Easter Sunday we’ll be looking at the resurrection and Jesus as the Son of God. And the following week I’ll be looking at Jesus’ ascension and Jesus as Lord. So making more of an occasion of Palm Sunday than usual made a great deal of liturgical sense.

But thinking of the importance of giving visible expression to our joy, as we did on Palm Sunday with our palm branches and praises, another example comes to mind also. Last evening (Palm Sunday evening) was our last session for our adult Bible study. It was a six week study called The Surprising Power of Jesus. The last session was on Jesus’ resurrection and his power over life. What made it special, and what gave it an extra note of joy, was that to really celebrate Jesus’ coming back to life and the victory we have over the grave as a result we counted down . . . 3-2-1 . . . Jesus is alive!!! And then we blew noisemakers and burst party-favours that sent a flurry of coloured pieces of paper raining down on us like snow flurries. And laugh! Boy, did we laugh! It was silly, but did it work! It reminded us of the kind of joy that we have in Christ and that it’s perfectly fine to give outward expression to inward joy. It also made me realize that sometimes we need a little extra incentive to express our joy and delight. We’re not all inclined to show our joy. But then sometimes showing our joy reminds us what joy really is.

So for the first time in years I had the chance to celebrate Palm Sunday. Yesterday was one of the best church services in awhile. It felt joyful. There was a melody of praise and gratitude that ran through our time of worship together. I realize that we can’t determine the worth of our worship by what we feel when we worship, but our worship shouldn’t be entirely exempt of feeling.

Our time in church yesterday—both during our morning worship and our Bible study—also helped me to appreciate once again what it means to be a part of a worshipping people. I was grateful for the sheer joy of having a community with which to celebrate my faith. The sort of joy that came alive in us yesterday wouldn’t have been possible without our coming together. This is because being with one another is a huge part of the joy we experience. We know joy because we know each other. And we know joy in Christ because we are in Christ together with brothers and sisters. And the only thing more joyful than the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem as king, though scarcely recognized at the time, is Jesus' resurrection--but that's a different day!

A Good Mystery . . . Revisited

One of the CDs I've had on my wish list for almost two years now is Bruce Cockburn's most recent effort, Life Short Call Now. I nearly always have a short wish list of CDs that I eventually want to get my hands on. It would probably be a longer list if I had more time to experiment with music and if I was being exposed to a wider variety than I am right now. But, needless to say, as a busy husband, father, and pastor I don't have the luxury of time and money that I once did as a college student to funnel more financial resources toward entertainment and cultural enterprises. I probably procure two or three CDs a year on average so, yes, I am shamefully behind. So when I saw Cockburn's album for $9.99 yesterday, I couldn't resist.

Now Cockburn is an interesting character. While he likely wouldn't fit any remotely evangelical mold, he has described himself as a Christian or at least as someone who believes in Jesus Christ. Many of his songs are permeated with biblical allusions and imagery. There is a definite and specific spiritual bent to his music, one that forms a more hopeful counter-balance to his often caustic and angry political observations. On Life Short Call Now, as on his last studio effort, You've Never Seen Everything, America's involvement in Iraq and its war on terror provides much fuel for the fire. I don't know that I would necessarily agree with all of his politics, I do resonate with his more spiritual ruminations.

One of the songs on his latest, "Beautiful Creatures," is a meditation on the disappearance of anything resembling goodness in the human species, and sounds like a reflection on the fall of man, lamenting the loss it represents: "Like a dam on a river/My conscience is pressed/By the weight of hard feelings/Piled up in my breast/The callous and vicious things humans display/The beautiful creatures are going away." Despite our innate sinfulness that results in the evil that men do, there is still a flicker of transcendence and mystery for those of us with eyes to see and so it might be better to say that if we are monsters that we are good monsters.

But the song that really struck is the third track on the album, "Mystery." And having heard it makes me wish I had heard it in advance of my previous post (Hence the title of this post). In it Cockburn sings, "You can't tell me there is no mystery/mystery, mystery/You can't tell me there is no mystery/It's everywhere I turn/Infinity always gives me vertigo/vertigo, vertigo/Infinity always gives me vertigo/And fills me up with grace." One gets the definite impression that it's this sense of mystery that keeps him afloat whilst facing a world filled with despair, violence, and greed. Amidst all his sharply barbed political observations (diatribes?), one wonders if these observations are informed and shaped at least in part by the instinct that the world and the way that it is is a violation of this very mystery and the truths to which it points.

Sometimes poets and artists have way of expressing truth that is simply lost on the rest of us. A sharp turn of phrase, the clever use of words, and the power of an infectious melody can sometimes say more than volumes of philosophy. This is especially true of mystery, which tends to elude explanation and definition, and requires revelation and inspiration. Some of the most prophetic voices of Scripture are poetic voices and it needs to be said that a book of the Bible's literary genre is not accidental to the truths they express but is an intrinsic part of it. Admittedly, for those of us more interested and more comfortable with prose, this too is something of a mystery. But thankfully it's a good mystery and thankfully there continue to be artists and poets who give voice to this mystery. Otherwise we might never hear the truth as we are meant to hear it.

A Good Mystery

I'm not much of a fiction reader, so most of my fiction comes from film and television. Yes, I can concede that this might be a poor man's substitute, but, as I already said recently (see my last post), I like watching TV. Enough with that. My point here is that more specifically a lot of the shows I watch are mysteries or serial dramas, ones that end each episode with a cliffhanger or unresolved story and therefore have the ability, to a greater or lesser degree, to hook you. In the best (or worst??) case scenario such shows might be described as addictive. One example of this would be 24. That this show is potentially addictive is not much of a surprise given that every episode occurs in real time and ends at the end of every hour. This, quite possibly, is both a pro and a con when you have the DVD set and are not watching it from week to week--there is no reason to wait for the next episode; you can watch the next one right away! However, this does lead to the occasional late night . . . So such shows are best reserved for occasions when rising early isn't required the next day! The point is that while I don't read mysteries I do like watching them.

Now when I say mystery, I mean something specific too. Take The X-Files, for instance. Here's a show that counted on its stories being unresolved and on having an overarching mythology that often raised more questions than answers. Such a method of telling stories reflected a key belief on the show, that there are mysteries in life, unfathomable phenomena, that escape the explanatory power of science and reason. To resolve every story and answer every question is tantamount to saying that there are no mysteries inherent in life, that there is nothing beyond what science can tell us.

I think what is attractive about such stories is that we love that there is mystery. It's like the poster on Special Agent Fox Mulder's office wall says, "I want to believe." We want to believe that there is more to life than what we can see with our eyes and touch with our hands. Such possibilities, whether it's the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial life or the possibility of the existence of God (for me, of course, this is more than a possibility even if it remains a mystery in its own way), promise us meaning and purpose, a way to define ourselves beyond the mundane routines of everyday life. It's no wonder that the producers of The X-Files often liken Mulder's search for proof of alien life to the search for God. Both are mysteries that bring life meaning. So no wonder shows like this become so popular in a world where people long for significance and identity, purpose and direction. Or even just a good mystery.

But, you see, the odd thing about shows like The X-Files, Lost, and others, is that the more questions they answer and the more mysteries they resolve the less satisfying they are. That's when the writing begins to show weak spots. While adept at posing the questions and identifying the mysteries, they are often profoundly inept at providing meaning to the mystery and giving answers to the questions (even if they remain entertaining). Once the mystery gives way to explanation, we often find ourselves profoundly dissatisfied.

So as entertaining and well-produced as any TV show might be, no such show can really provide a person's life with meaning. While they serve as a corporate sponsored reminder that there are mysteries in life, they can no more give us purpose than Dr. Phil can dispense sound, life-changing counsel in short segments between commercial breaks. Though people seek meaning there, even if unconsciously. Hence the large number of fans that absorb and analyse the details of such shows in hopes of cracking the code. It takes more than a good mystery to do that. It takes the best mystery, the only one that truly satisfies. That's the mystery we have in the Bible.

In Ephesians the apostle Paul talks about this mystery and how he had been entrusted to make this mystery plain to everyone: "I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all the Lord's people, this grace was given to me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things." The apostle here refers to the gospel of Jesus Christ as a mystery. He is saying that until the advent of Christ into the world, the mystery of God's plan was a secret, known only to God himself. He says something similar in Romans. And in Colossians Paul comes right out and says that this mystery is Jesus Christ.

Most people want more than they have. Life doesn't provide automatically a deep, satisfying sense of meaning and purpose. Lots of people wander through life feeling the weight of the world and of the ultimate questions without ever really landing on an answer that quells the thirst and satiates the hunger. This, I think, leads to a sense of loss, but without telling us what it is that we've lost. "My heart is restless, oh God, until it finds rest in You," prays Augustine. We enter this world with a gaping hole in our hearts, one that is, unbeknownst to us, God-shaped. So we try with all our might to fill this hole with any number of things, and usually these things only serve to feed the hunger and increase our thirst. At the very least satisfaction is temporary.

The mystery of God, that there can be wholeness and redemption, fullness of meaning and purpose, has been revealed in Jesus. God's plan in Christ is to disclose his means for saving human beings from their sin and brokenness so that we needn't spend any more time wandering and wondering, lost and directionless, like a ship drifting on the sea. That God-shaped hole in our heart can only be filled by Jesus, for in him the fullness of who God is and what he is up to has been made known.

The big difference between the mystery presented in various TV serial dramas and the mystery of the gospel is that while the presentation of the mysteries in such shows is usually more compelling than any answers they can give, the opposite is true of the good news. We spend our lives consciously or unconsciously looking for answers to life's mysteries, wanting to experience the deep satisfaction that comes when we discover meaning and purpose for ourselves, and it is only when we find our heart's true home, in Jesus himself, that we are satisfied. It's the only mystery that, when revealed, is more compelling than the questions we ask and the attempts at seeking meaning we make. That makes our faith in Christ not just a good mystery, but a great one, the only one worth truly being revealed to us.

My Confession . . .

Despite the name of this blog, not a lot of confessing actually takes place here. In fact, I use the term confessions more in the sense of Augustine's Confessions. Not that I'm comparing my meagre reflections to his profound autobiographical treatise! His is a masterpiece of Western religious thought and philosophy. Mine are, well, lucky to be read by a small number of family and friends. But now I'm getting off topic.

So I have a confession to make. I want to admit to something that I almost feel embarrassed about. It's my dark, dirty little secret. It's one of those personal quirks that I tend to hide in the shadows, away from prying, evaluative, judging eyes. So, please, when you hear it--or, rather, read it--don't think that I have conceded to the moral downslide of our culture and indeed have become a willing participant in it.

Here it is: I like TV.

There it is. There you have it. I haven't completely renounced as subversively evil that dreaded one-eyed monster, that contraption responsible for the bulk of our societal ills, the idiot box, the 20th century invention to end all 20th century inventions, the one that has perhaps shaped our world more than any other: the television.

Why is this a confession, you ask? It's a confession because as a pastor I often hear about people condemning outright anything and everything that is broadcast on television. I hear about the influence TV has on children, young people, and families. I hear church members decry its depiction of moral decay and gratuitous displays of violence and sex. And all the while as I listen to such comments, I think to myself, "You know, there are actually some TV shows I like. And some of them you just might not approve of." So it's a confession insofar as it's something that I don't really say to many people, especially those who know me in my capacity as pastor. Isn't the pastor supposed to be the sort of person who rises above that banal need for mindless and passive entertainment? Apparently not, because I don't.

The odd thing about this, of course, is that while my family and I have a television (a modest widescreen model), we don't actually have television channels. I'm not interested in having either cable TV or a satellite dish, and probably couldn't afford either one of those anyway even if I were. So, you're wondering, without TV channels, how do I watch TV? (Well, if you've gotten this far, you still might not care that much about how I do get to watch TV. Take it as a rhetorical question!) In any case the answer is: TV DVDs.

For the last few years my wife and I have purchased TV DVD boxsets instead of paying for other cable options. We buy shows we want to see, spend less money because we don't have a monthly bill, and pay even less money because sometimes family and friends give them to us as gifts on appropriate holidays. There are pros and cons to doing it this way, but, for right now, the pros outweigh the cons. Still, it's amusing to watch people react when we tell them we have a TV but no TV channels. It's almost the equivalent of what I imagine the reaction would be like if I said to someone that while, yes, the telephone does seem to be a wonderfully useful and convenient piece of technology, we as a family are still rather attached to our carrier pigeon and don't plan, therefore, on upgrading anytime soon.

So isn't this really a silly confession? Well, maybe. It's been awhile since I've posted here and I wanted something to write about! And I find that, strangely, I feel somewhat guilty about enjoying TV. Or I should say some TV. I'm sort of picky in what I choose to watch, especially since I'm (usually) paying for particular TV boxsets (The X-Files, Seinfeld, 24, Fawlty Towers, and a few more). Now as far as whether there's anything redeeming (artistically or spiritually) about anything I watch, that's a topic for another post. It was hard enough owning up to the fact that I actually enjoy watching some TV! For now, time to exit the confessional.