charlieDEAN’S Blog

I recently acquired The Message on MP3 format so that I could load it on my Dell DJ. So this week I began listening to the Bible as I drive in to work. I get about three chapters in, which is perfect! Anyway, here’s a thought from this morning…

Remember after Noah gets out the ark, after the rainbow, and definitely after the children’s stories end when Noah gets hammered in a cave? (See Genesis 9) One of his sons sees him and then goes and tells the other two. The other two go in walking backwards carrying a blanket between them and cover their father without checking out his birthday suit.

When Noah wakes up, he condemns the one son - Ham - and praises the other two. Here’s what captured my thoughts this morning — the text doesn’t even hint at a condemnation of Noah for getting wasted, but instead focuses on the sin of his son Ham (maybe he was a screwed up kid because he dad named him after a deli meat). We have no idea if Ham was mocking, or making fun of his dad. What we do know is that Ham didn’t treat his father with grace, mercy, kindness or gentleness and instead chose to make a spectacle of his dad’s drunkenness. And maybe that’s the point of the story!

Funny how this passage was always about the evils of alcohol in my fundamentalist upbringing!

I don’t normally do this, but my sister emailed me this picture of my oldest son, Caleb. I think he is such a beautiful boy. I know that I’m biased because he’s my son, and I know that this is a more-sentimental-than-usual post. Hey, if you don’t like it, get your own blog!

I am so thankful for my boys (and girl? boy?…we’ll find out in October sometime). I am blessed.

Thanks to Dave for a link to these pictures! I’m sure that this would help men connect more to church!

First off…I hate cars. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been in a life circumstance where I’ve been able to buy one that I really want. Or maybe it’s because I’m not mechanically inclined. Or I guess it could also be a case of a deficient amount of testosterone coursing through my veins, but if I could live in the city and not have to own a car, I wouldn’t be unhappy.

This summer our Ford Contour has probably cost us more than it’s probably worth! My terminology may be incorrect, but we’ve needed a new front end cover for the transmission, new tie rod, CV boot(?) and then this weekend, a new transmission range sensor, injector cleansing and new spark plugs, and we also had to fix the water pump (that will probably fail again in the next couple months requiring a new water pump housing).

So, here’s the point. I hate cars. Really hate my Ford Contour (although it is paid for so we don’t really want to trade it and the body is in good shape for an 8-year old car), and love that I have friends like Cory who are patient with my car ignorance and are more than willing to work on my car for me. (I would say “work on my car with me,” but I really just hand him tools and ask questions — I probably slow him down more than I help!)

What a great weekend! I’m learning about myself, that for me to feel good about my life, there’s a couple things that have to be in balance and this weekend, I felt pretty close to having them balanced.

First, I need a healthy dose of activity and accomplishment. I don’t feel real great about myself when I do nothing all weekend. This weekend I worked on a Habitat house that we are doing through our ministry in cooperation with Bradley University. I could spend a lot of time talking about how great Habitat is and how fun it was to go from nothing but a floor on Thursday to having the roof on and felt paper down by Saturday, but I’ll save that for another time.

Secondly, I need to feel like I’ve connected with my wife and kids. After I got home from the Habitat house on Saturday, we went to a car show that was being held at our church this weekend and then went to church Saturday night so that we could all hang out together Sunday morning. (Which we did — lots of tickling and playing, although Gaving had a 103 degree fever, so he was pretty mellow.)

Thirdly, It’s great if we can get some time to reconnect with friends and/or family. On Friday night we had over some former students from my youth ministry days and on Saturday night, we had over some friends to just “veg out” and watch a semi-stupid movie (Shallow Hal).

When all those things happen, I feel like I’m really living life and not just surviving it…know what I mean?

There are days that I’d like to quit the whole Christian thing — hang it up, turn in my card, resign, retire, whatever. It’s not because I don’t believe in God or Jesus, but because of the other people on the team. People that are making the rest of us look bad because of their poor play. People like Pat Robertson. On Monday Robertson called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, the freely elected president of Venezuela. Robertson’s reason for wanting to have Chavez killed? “I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him.”

That’s right Pat! If anyone is a little paranoid they should be executed. Immediately. End of story.

WHAT?!?

Okay, to make an attempt at fairness, Chavez has been talking about not selling as much oil to the United States because of his paranoia. So clearly Robertson has every right to call for his assassination! So take THAT you liberal media!

Today, Robertson apologized, said he spoke out of frustration, and then blamed the media for taking him out of context and misquoting him. Uhhhh, Pat, are you sorry, or are you making excuses? I’m really confused by your statement! It seems like you’re trying to say the words, “I’m sorry,” without really taking any blame for your completely asinine statement. Clever. GREAT PR move. Slick! I’m sure in heaven it was noted how you called for a blatant violation of the sixth commandment, ignored pretty much everything in the sermon on the mount and avoided taking any real blame for it!

Really thought, I don’t think I’ll quit, not today. I just hope that the people in the stands — the people that Jesus told us we should “turn the other cheek to,” maybe even the people that qualify as our enemies as in “love your enemies,” get the difference between the way the most of us are trying to play the game and the way the people like Pat Robertson play it! It saddens me how the Christian community just quiets themselves during a flap like this. When do we ever stand up and say, “enough is enough,” this man does not speak for us?

I don’t usually have a lot of links to other people’s blogs, but this one is more than worth it. Check out this rant againt mass forwarding — it’s hilarious (and true)!

I know that I’ve blogged about this book before, but hang on, cuz this won’t be the last. John Burke is the pastor of Gateway Community Church. They print this every weekend in their program:

Come as you are…
You don’t have to dress up. You don’t have to be any particular age. We couldn’t care less who you voted for in the last election. And please, don’t feel the need to pretend about anything. Gateway Community Church is a place where God meets seeking people who are far from perfect. That means anyone is welcome, no matter where you are on your spiritual journey. So learn at your own pace. Ask questions. Seek. We believe you’ll find what you’re looking for. You’ll learn how to relate to God. You’ll experience Christian community. And here’s the big thing — you will change. Join us as we seek God together. Just com as you are.

AWESOME!! In the context I grew up in (churches, schools, college), although it wasn’t stated, here’s what we should have written in our “bulletins.”

Come as we would like you to be…
We’d prefer that you dress up at least a little bit and preferable in yesterday’s styles. If you didn’t vote “republican” in the last election, we’ll make sure that you vote right next time. Make sure that you don’t drink or smoke or listen to music that we deem questionable (don’t even mention the words “sexual orientation”). And for sure, if you do any of these things, do them secretly. Or at least make sure that we don’t know about it, because if you have opinions that are different than ours we will seriously doubt whether or not you are serious about religion at all. Please don’t ask questions, at least not hard ones. God transcends us so much that there’s really no hope of understanding Him anyway, so just pray that you’ll have more faith. When you give enough money, follow enough rules, show up often enough and learn to hide any unpolished corners of your personality or lifestyle, then God will accept you and you’ll feel his presence.

Sorry…I’m feeling a little ornery today!!

First off, someone sent me a link the other day to this Honda ad. I saw it for the first time about a year ago, but it doesn’t cease to amaze. They claim that there was no trick photography or special effects used and that almost 600 takes were required to get it just right. I know for some of you engineer types, this will be seen as a challenge and you’ll begin building something similar in your garages tonight!

Secondly, I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while, but Rod Dixon, the general manager at Bob Lindsey Honda in Peoria goes to Northwoods (he’s the guy on the radio ads). Anyway, I was talking to him at church one day about how if I had the money right now, I would get rid of my stupid ‘98 Ford Contour and get a Honda Accord Hybrid. So, he told me to let him know the next time I would be bringing in my Odyssey for regular maintenance and he would let me try out a hybrid. So I test drove a Civic Hybrid. Cool! I wouldn’t want a Civic — too small for a “not-so-small guy,” but I really would love to have a hybrid!

I promised someone that I would provide some links, so here they are…these two books have both been critical in my soul formation. I know our church bookstore has them but these links are to Amazon.com so you can get a summary:

Reaching for the Invisible God — Philip Yancey

Windows to the Soul — Ken Gire