I WISH I WAS THE MOON TONIGHT, BY NEKO CASE
Click here to hear the song, "I Wish I Was the Moon Tonight"

Chimney falls and lovers blaze
Thought that I was young
Now I've freezing hands and bloodless veins
As numb as I've become
I'm so tired
I wish I was the moon tonight
Last night I dreamt I had forgotten my name
'Cause I had sold my soul but awoke just the same
I'm so lonely
I wish I was the moon tonight
God blessed me, I'm a free man
With no place free to go
I'm paralyzed and collared-tight
No pills for what I fear
This is crazy
I wish I was the moon tonight
Chimney falls and lovers blaze
Thought that I was young
Now I've freezing hands and bloodless veins
As numb as I've become
I'm so tired,
I wish I was the moon tonight
How will you know if you found me at least
'Cause I'll be the one, be the one, be the one
With my heart in my lap
I'm so tired, I'm so tired
I wish I was the moon tonight

Last night, I didn't dream that I'd forgotten my name or that I was the moon, but I definitely did dream that I wasn't here. (The song, btw, is a by a new artist I'm loving).

I first dreamt that Robert, Stephanie, another woman that I didn't know and I were moving into our apartment in our city in our middle eastern country. I can see the apartment right this moment as clear as if I were there right this moment. There were three beds within eye shot of the front door, all with dark, reddy colored blankets. One was in its own room (of course), and the other two shared a room. The kitchen was the to the left of the main room where you entered, which was sort of like what we would call a "living room" (or what MY family calls a living room, the more formal room). There was hardly any furniture in this room, which I thought strange, though it seemed to be decorated well enough. Beyond this room, we could see a room where there was a couch, so I figured that to be the "family room." We were greetly warmly by a tall-ish round lady who knew Robert, and put our things in the first bedroom. What I remember most about the whole thing is the bed linens. They were the strangest, reddish-rustiest color. I didn't want this dream to end.

But of course it did, because apparently I needed to dream about sky diving, only not sky diving on purpose. I was assigned to cover someone doing it, and didn't mean to cover them all the way out of the plane, I just happened to be so into the story that I followed them all the way out. I didn't have a parachute on, so as I went down, I was frozen in fear almost the whole way, but I remember thinking, "Hey, if I can just wiggle around enough at about 5,000 ft., I think I'll slow down and be able to stick the landing." It worked.

When I woke up, I thought to myself, "I was so scared stiff during that dream, I wonder if I've just had a seizure?" because there are types of seizures that are basically where you stiffen up SO tight at night during your sleep. BUT, then I realized that I didn't feel tense or tight at all, and settled on the fact that I was just a freak with a freaky dream freaking out!

GALATIANS 6V1-10

My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor's work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads.

Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher.

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.

WRITE YOUR OWN CAPTION.


This just shows that you can't trust Emily Krider when it comes to Education. Vote NO for Emily Krider this November.

THIS NUMBER IS TEMPORARILY OUT OF SERVICE.

(Edited: So apparently, she didn't take my charger after all. Maybe the plug upstairs just wasn't working or something and that made it seem like that charger wasn't working. We're back in business now. Thanks everyone!).

So last week when my mom was here in Columbus catching her flight back to Texas, she accidentally grabbed MY cell phone charger and took it back with her. So my phone is dead as a door nail. And probably her new cell phone is, too. Only, because it's new, she might think that the charger that she has is just the WRONG charger, and might have even just thrown it away or something. I'm just saying that she might not realize that she has mine. Well, and without telling the whole story, I don't actually KNOW her new cell phone number so I can't call it and see if it's dead or try to tell her what's happened. I think I'm going to write her a letter. How 1940.

OH, and ironically...Bob and I HAVE a car cell phone charger that works with my phone. Now all we need is a car and I'll be back in business. Maybe someone else will come stay with us and accidentally leave their WORKING car with us and take our broken down van with them!?

HEY! It COULD happen, right?!

JAMES 1:19-27

(check out the comments for the actual post - this post is for our home group mostly, but everyone else can read, too).

GOOD CHARLOTTE INDEED.

"girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money!" is playing on MTV right now and I'm remembering how much I liked this song when it first came out.

CHEAP GRACE.

Brother Lawrence did not have this kind of preaching and singing in mind [the kind that seeks its own easy glory, rather than God's]. He washed dishes; it was enough for him. He did not need to preach like the superstars of his day (and surely there were some). He had no need to travel about doing some medicine show for Jesus. No, his testimony was simple: "We must serve God in a Holy freedom, going about our business carefully, but without stress or anxiety, recalling the mind of God...whenever we find it wandering."

The purpose of God for our lives has to do primarily with fellowship, not entertainment. There is only basis that we may find this fellowship with God and that is with godliness. 1 Tim. 4:7 begs us to discipline ourselves for godliness. There are many books out now on discipline. Deitrich Bonhoeffer reminds us that salvation without discipline is merely cheap grace. It is a poor attempt to buy the most of God with the least of our yielding. Dallas Williard, in the Spirit of the Disciplines, says,

My central claim is that we can become like Christ by doing one thing - by following him in the overall style of life he chose for himself. If we have faith in Christ, we must believe that he knew how to live. We can, through faith and grace, become like Christ by practicing the types of activities he engaged in, by arranging our whole lives around the activities he himself practiced in order to remain constantly at home in the fellowship of his Father.

In the Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence has this glorious order in mind, that we will practice the discipline of relationship. Charles Spurgeon wrote, "I must take care above all that I cultivate communion with Christ for though that can never be the basis of my peace - mark that - yet it will be the channel of it." Our relationship with God and our hunger for that relationship is God's agenda. He does not require our amazing talent to be laid on the altar. He requires our lives to be the altar. We are never to be content with merely DOING things for God. We are central in his will only as we hunger for more of him. When we crave his presence, our music will transcend accompaniment tapes, and our preaching will throb with otherworldly power. Seek the kingdom, Jesus said (Matt 6:33), and then we will be able to dispense with every salute to our weak genius.

(Calvin Miller, The Unchained Soul)

TUMBLEWEED TENDENCIES DIE HARD.

Tumbleweed is a name used for a number of species from the genus Salsola (Family Amaranthaceae). Tumbleweeds break away from their roots in the autumn, and are driven by the wind, as a light, rolling mass, over fields and prairies, scattering seed far and wide. Prairie tumbleweed produces its seeds in such profusion that the plant doesn't bother with protective coatings or food reserves for the coiled plant embryos.

I'M FASTING TODAY, SO BY 6:40PM, THIS IS FUNNY.

LOSING INTEREST IN SELF.

Nothing is so glorious as the reception of Christ into our lives. There, deep in the center of our true identity, he is Lord. We bow to him, leaving self and self-interest behind. At that moment, it is no longer enough to explain ourselves by owning up to our own names. We must own up to his. We must confess him to others and unashamedly say that our own identity is of such small importance we have replaced it with his...

The excellence of his lordship is often learned when we are locked in the jaws of need and failure. As long as we are winning in life, we bask in a glory that celebrates only ourselves. But when we begin to fail, our celebration of ourselves will not sustain us. Then we call out to Christ, confessing his name. How true the words of David, "The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart" (psalm 34v18).
(The Unchained Soul, by Calvin Miller)

HEADS CAROLINA, TAILS CALIFORNIA.

We both knew it would happen, we just didn't expect it so soon or suddenly. We threw a rod in our new old van this Friday, and so our new old van is now dead. It was all very dramatic, as you can imagine, and the results of NOT having a vehicle also feel very dramatic.

*HEAVY SIGH*

I LOVE THESE PICTURES.

Ah-Ha-HA

THE COOKIES STILL SUCK OR (WHAT THE CHURCH NEEDS NOW) OR WHAT'S ON MY MIND THAT'S KEEPING ME FROM BLOGGING.

What the Church Needs Now is kind of a bold title for an article, but it carries with it a bit of irony. There is a bunch I think the church in America needs; join the club, right? I'll get to one specific item in a few sentences, but here's a thought before I get there. What if the church doesn't need anything now. Maybe that's part of the problem. We are always looking for solutions to fix the church's problems right now. We go through a period of disillusionment with the status quo, leave and begin looking for greener pastures, and almost immediately reorganize into something with basically the same values and culture as the place we left. The model might be tweaked a bit, but the fundamental patterns of church life remain.

I used to recommend that people leaving church staff or other leadership positions take at least 6 months to a year to detox from ingrown, destructive patterns before setting out to start something new. Now I wonder if that time frame needs to be more like five to ten years. The Apostle Paul immersed himself in life with Jesus for fourteen years before his real ministry began. For someone who was forcefully upholding the Jewish way of life, it probably took that long for him to learn how to minister to people the way Jesus did. If our ministries have had their foundation in numbers, programs, and mechanisms of success achievement, then perhaps we need the same retraining.

What the church needs are leaders willing to be retrained in the way of Jesus. This training will not come from a seminar or book or by copying some famous Christian celebrity. The first step, bluntly, is to die to the American way of getting things done. This transition will not happen efficiently or autonomously. This is old school ancient, eastern, Mr. Miyagi kind of training. You can't buy your way through it faster and you can't get it done alone. If you try to short-circuit the training and get through it quicker (and I'm speaking from experience here), you go backwards and everything gets longer. If you go into it looking for inspiration, or as Peterson says in the Message, "homeowner improvements to your standard of living," you'll get your butt handed to you. I've had mine handed to me so many times I'm wondering how my pants stay up. If you doubt me in any of this, go read an old saint of your choice. The older the better. (Now you know why so many old men have no butt:)

Recently we took the Lord's Supper with our church family. My wife Amber spent time talking with the kids about the nature of communion and asking them some questions. One question she asked was, "What do think happens to God's people when they take communion?" Our oldest, who is five, responded, "I think God gives us courage."

Courage.

What if what we need is courageous people to lead the church, and that courage only comes as a gift of God through an act of worship and obedience? Maybe in God's economy, gifting doesn't mean a thing when it comes to leadership. Maybe skills don't matter. Education. Experience. Previous success. Makes no difference. Maybe what we need are people who live in spite of questions and fear, fail regularly, get frustrated, pour their souls out to those precious few around them, and then stubbornly return to the One who is overseeing every aspect of the process.

Things are beginning to get much simpler for me...and more difficult. The choices are clearer...and more scary. God doesn't want a repackaged, band-aided American church culture anymore and he is sick and tired of poster-boy leaders who gloss over the stark realities of becoming a disciple of Jesus. I just received Dallas Willard's new book in the mail today, The Great Omission, and a line immediately stuck out to me from the jacket blurb: "Willard boldly challenges the thought that we can be Christians without being disciples, or call ourselves Christians without applying this understanding of life in the Kingdom of God to every aspect of life on earth." To address this claim, which I think is accurate, a new kind of leader is required. That is the challenge being offered to all of us.

POST SECRET



See a Secret...Share a Secret. Check out this website, an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. New entries are added each Sunday, but then you can't view the previous week's entries after that. There is a book,and an art tour, too. I love this idea. The previous three week's entries have been better than this week's (sorry gang, I just forgot to post the link before now!) Thanks Ben for the link.

(Matthew 8:18-19)
When Jesus saw that a curious crowd was growing by the minute, he told his disciples to get him out of there to the other side of the lake. As they left, a religion scholar asked if he could go along. "I'll go with you, wherever," he said.
20Jesus was curt: "Are you ready to rough it? We're not staying in the best inns, you know."

21Another follower said, "Master, excuse me for a couple of days, please. I have my father's funeral to take care of."

22Jesus refused. "First things first. Your business is life, not death. Follow me. Pursue life."

23-25Then he got in the boat, his disciples with him. The next thing they knew, they were in a severe storm. Waves were crashing into the boat—and he was sound asleep! They roused him, pleading, "Master, save us! We're going down!"

26Jesus reprimanded them. "Why are you such cowards, such faint-hearts?" Then he stood up and told the wind to be silent, the sea to quiet down: "Silence!" The sea became smooth as glass.

27The men rubbed their eyes, astonished. "What's going on here? Wind and sea come to heel at his command!"

MRS. ANGIE MEEKER RETURNS TO OZ.

To quote my "husband", "Yes, the honeymoon was awesome. Thanks for asking. And, yes, that's as much detail as you should expect."

But, I will give you this much. Operators are standing by if you'd like to get your very own, Bob Ross-Happy Trees-inspired, limited edition, sure to sell out and definitely not going to be around for long (but not so much because there are limited supplies but more because there's a limited demand and the market won't support this amazing piece of art!)...Yes, Oz Readers, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for you and your investors, something you can be sure to pass along to your children and their children.

It's the Robert and Angela Meeker Wedding Print. If you'll expand the photo and look closely, you'll see the actual brush strokes from where where each of these have been HAND painted! :-) (Actual wedding photos to follow soon.)



In unrelated news, my not-arty neighbors are playing a didgeridoo right this moment (12:49PM). Quite well, I might add. At least they're able to make a noise with it. That's more than a lot of people can do with one. Kudos to you, not arty cracked out neighbors. If the crack/meth business drops off here in C'bus, you can always go into the didgeridoo playing business somewhere downtown. OH! Hahaha...they just tickled their lips on the tip of it. Hahaha...