Chuck Love: Toward a Better Understanding of the Kingdom

A Good Proposal follows:

From this day forward, all people shall wear laminated statements of faith that shall bear witness to their doctrines, distinctives, and practices. They shall wear them tightly about their necks. And when they meet another person of faith, they shall immediately read his Sheet. And so shall each one perfectly judge the other's share in the Kingdom.

(Context: There has been an ongoing argument, though not really, over homosexuality, though not really, that inspired this piece. If you have several free days, you can read the original articles and the extensive comments for yourself. The latest is here.)

On Catholicism

As I've mentioned before, I would describe my current faith as being most closely reflected in the activity and beliefs of the group that calls itself emerging - on the conservative end of things, to be sure, but emergent. I've never had anyone approach me about this statement negatively. Maybe it's because of your fear of offending. Maybe it's because you couldn't care less. Maybe it's because you don't really understand what being emerging means. (Maybe it's because you don't read my blog - he he he.) Maybe it's because you know me and you understand my passion for the Lord and are, therefore, content with my movements/adjustments within my faith. I hope your reason is the last in my overwrought list.

But I want to be engaged. I want to be asked questions. So please don't ever feel badly about bringing up a faith issue with me.

With this in mind, I'd like to directly ask you a question about faith, practice, and unity. It follows.

How would you respond if I told you I was deliberating over whether I should join the Roman Catholic Church (RCC)? Would you respond positively? Negatively? What are your arguments in favor of my consideration or against it? How would you respond to me personally, religion aside - in other words, would our relationship change if I became Catholic? Does it even matter to you?

Now, what I'm looking for is detailed (though not necessarily lengthy), rational arguments rather than stereotypical statements like "Pope worship," "Maryolatry," or some such nonsense. I give these examples because I know the majority of my handful of readers are Protestants as I am. I want specifics. If you are Protestant, why are you not Catholic? If you are Catholic, why are you Catholic? (Remember, I'm asking this question based on my deliberation - a Protestant's deliberation - over Catholicism.)

Some of you, I know, feel like you have vested interest in this decision because you are family. I don't mind the expression of those feelings. I welcome them. But I would also like to hear your arguments against or for such a decision rather than some heated, regrettable lashing-out.

I have been up-front about how I feel about unity within the body of Christ on this blog. It is extremely important to me because I believe that it is the heart of God as well as the heart of our being a missional people. In that light, what prevents our unity with the RCC? Is the RCC apostate? Is it a cult? Or is it walking in truth?

I desire for each of you to examine what you believe and why you believe it. So I ask that you take the post seriously. And a thank-you to those of you willing to engage me here.

Now excuse me, but I've got to get to church.

The French Do It Better

On Jamie Dawn's blog she recently asked about movies that we, her readers, enjoy watching over and over again. Of course Star Wars came up. I'm a big fan of Star Wars myself, though I was somewhat disappointed by the writing in the prequels. I do, however, own all the Star Wars movies, and I recently discovered an excellent way to watch the prequels: In French. I don't speak French, and my ignorance of the language increases the entertainment value of these movies (If you are fluent in both Spanish and French, then this method will not work for you.) In French, I can appreciate the movies without getting entangled in all the silly dialogue. After all, I already know what's going on - why be distracted by anachronistic one-liners? Also, the French voices are far more pleasant to listen to than the whining that takes place with many of the English-speaking actors.

I still enjoy the original Star Wars movies in English, but watching the prequels in French is an excellent alternative to dispensing with them altogether. The French just do it better.

Disclaimer: Jar-Jar is annoying as hell in every language.

Too Near

I want to be this man of steel she sees in me. But I am just flesh, just blood, just sinew, just bone. I want to be more.

My voice is shaky. My hands stutter. My heart is double- and triple-minded. My face is cracked. My eyes melt.

My words are arbitrary and violent. Feverish, they wander. They reel and rend and wreck. They lie. They want to be more.

What can I take for my pain? What can I take for hers?

I want to be this steel she sees in me. But I am a child like her. My child is my sister and, Sister, I do not know what to do. Birgitte lies here, silver bow in her hair, breathing raggedly. Diana pursues her. She bends her bow.

I sweep away her yellow hair. I kiss her forehead and my soul is singed. Me, not her. Me for her. Me for her.

She is all softness and silence. He is all fire and stone. All these many years and I do not understand this swan from stone.

Flower from clay.

Juliet from Capulet.

I kiss her forehead and my soul sings out its dirge. It reaches for something wild; it hopes for something tame. Soul and spirit are out of tune. But they play. They play. My face is cracked with the dissonance.

And still she burns. And still she breathes ragged, half-formed breaths. And still she sleeps. She is beautiful - sanctified angel. She is three. She is only three. Let her be. Let her be.

My soul is fire. My spirit is forged. I am steel. Unbending. Unforgiving. Tempered. I want to be more. Just let her be. Oh God, let her be. Look away. Be there and not here.

A Prank, Soured

In seventh grade, the year I was homeschooled, we went to Chuck E. Cheese's as a celebration for some accomplishment that I've forgotten. But I remember the Skee-ball and the tickets and the prize that I redeemed with my tickets. You've seen the fake arrows that you can wear on your head, as if your skull has been shot through? This prize was a nail that you could wear on your finger so that it looked as if your finger had been run through. It had some red, token-blood paint on either side of the nail nearest your finger.

When I was redeeming my tickets and I saw this prize, my imagination began to repeatedly puncture my common sense with its wild, thorny possibilities. I held the little prize in its little plastic bag, rubbed it tenderly, muttered, "Precious," under my breath, and hid it in my pocket.

When I got home, I was determined to try out the prank on my sister and my mom. I'd set up a semi-believable, junior-high-school scenario in my head, and so I told my sister that I was going to work on a project out in the garage. Now, I never worked on projects out in the garage, but I didn't give my sister any time to ask questions. I was out the door and into the garage and had a hammer pounding on a board lickety-split. I took the fake nail out of my pocket. I put it on my finger. I hammered several more times. Then with one final strike of the hammer, I screamed loudly and ran inside.

My sister was in the kitchen and she immediately appeared in the kitchen doorway wondering what had happened. I ran up the stairs with a look of abject horror on my face, screaming something about a nail. I waved my hand in front of my sister and she panicked. She screamed and called for my mom. We screamed together.

And then my prank soured. All my imaginings of what might be were crushed under the single, never-before-seen reality of what was. At the moment of near junior-high prank perfection, my mom rushed out of the bedroom wearing only her pants and a bra. My jaw dropped open, my hands came up to shield my eyes from the brassiered juggernaut of motherhood's approach, and the screams of pain became pleads of, "No, no, no! Wait! Wait! It's just fake! It's just fake!"

My mother and my sister were not amused. I was no longer amused. Frankly, I was more than a little disturbed. And the nail, as far as I know, went into the trash, its pranking days over before they had ever really begun.

Oh Well.

Congratulations, Seahawks.

Oh, and congratulations, Steelers.

Queer News

Chad Allen is starring in a movie about missionaries. One of the people he portrays, Steve Saint (a Christian missionary), defends the casting of this homosexual actor for the movie.

End of the Spear, which opens in theaters [today] (Friday, January 20), tells the story of five young Christian missionaries, pilot Nate Saint among them, who were brutally murdered in the jungles of Ecuador 50 years ago by members of the fiercely violent Waodani people. The film goes on to depict how the martyred pilot's son, Steve Saint, who was five years old when his father and friends were slain, returns to the Waodani as an adult and befriends them, even becoming a good friend to one of those involved in the murder of his father and the other missionaries.

Playing the role of both Saints, father and son, in the film is Chad Allen, an openly homosexual stage and screen star who has spoken publicly on same-sex marriage and other 'gay civil rights' issues. In an interview with In L.A. magazine, the actor noted that he has a Catholic Christian background but now embraces a spirituality that encompasses Buddhist, Hindu, and Native American influences as well.

Ack! Surely we're in the last days! The next thing you know they'll be making movies about queer cowboys. Thank goodness Lord of the Rings has already been made, otherwise they'd be casting a queer in the role of Gandalf or an elf or something.

(Forgive the sarcasm. But, personally, the outcry against Allen is unmerited. Agree? Disagree? Why?)

SOOF-yan

I'm not much a fan of the indie scene, but Sufjan has caught my ear. Maybe it's the fact that much of his music is "faith-themed" without the didacticism. Perhaps it's that his home state is my home state and he's written an album about it. Possibly it's the sheer artistry. I don't know. But I love Sufjan Stevens. The complexity and audacity of his music - its melancholy, its joy, and its being all things in between - are entrapment.

To be honest, it took a few listens for me to first get into the music (It's that different). But three albums later and I haven't looked back. Curse iTunes for not having his Seven Swans album! Curse iTunes for making it so easy for me to spend the children's food and clothes money on music!

Sufjan is sheer artistry. So if you get a chance, give a listen. (Then again my dad has this illuminating simile concerning opinions and how everyone has one . . .)

. . . . .

Three of my favorite tracks from each of the two albums in his 50 States project:

Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State

• "The Upper Peninsula"
• "Romulus"
• "Vito's Ordination Song"

Illinois: Come On Feel the Illinoise

• "John Wayne Gacy, Jr."
• "Casimir Pulaski Day"
• "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us"

And there are so many others. Rock on, Sufjan! Indie on? Whatever.

She Could Not

Anna is five years old today. Five. I do not want to believe it, but it is true. I wrote a poem about her when she was only three months old. She was only a baby: She could not race around the house like a horse or prowl like a lion. She could not draw so purely, so passionately. She could not sing songs praising the beauty of the evening or of the One who sowed the moon and the stars in the black, fertile soil of Night. She could not tell me, with tears, how she missed her grandparents. She could not gently remind me about the apology I owed her for yelling. She could not swing so riotously, scraping the clouds with her toes. She could not love pizza. She could not play in the bay window, wrapping herself and her sisters in story. She could not reach her arms about me as she would a too-wide tree and say, I love you, Daddy. She could not do any of these things.

But she was Anna - full, even then, of grace.

She watches me write; I watch her be.
Peace newly born,
Clumsy-handed grace,
Turtle-tongued.
Bright-eyed, we watch together.

I'm still watching, Anna. I'm still amazed. I'm still in love.

Excreta! Excreta! Read All About It!

As a stay-at-home dad, one of the things I hate is messes. Why? Because I am naturally lazy and it makes work. Because I'd rather be sailing. Because it is the instant interruption of anything I'm doing (blogging, writing, freelancing, cleaning, napping, being fed grapes while being fanned, placing bets, getting pedicures, etc.). It makes me boil. So I get anxious around mealtimes, knowing (the absolute knowledge kind of knowing) that I will have to clean up a spill: cheesy pasta, sugary milk and soggy cereal squishies, juice, peanut butter smears, jelly glops, bread crusts, crumbs, SpaghettiOs, or whatever may be on the menu.

It's so . . . out of control.

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Recently my little raccoon has taken to biting. He mainly bites the yellow-haired child - who takes things from him or tries to enforce her queenly rule over him - so my concern is not all that great at this point. All the same, I may lay off reading the Thomas Harris novels to him at bedtime.