Excursus 6/8/18

June 8, 2018 / J.K. / Leave a comment

Reading
Probably the biggest news this week came from the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Jack Phillip, a Colorado baker who refused to make a specialty cake for a gay couple’s wedding. This is an interesting case with a unique ruling, and I’m not sure what to think about all of it. There is a lot going on here, but a few points from the beginning: he apparently didn’t refuse to sell them any cakes, he refused to make a cake specifically for their wedding (or, really for their reception that was held a little over a year later), and offered them names of other bakers who would make them a cake. So, part of the argument his attorneys made was free expression based on cake decorating being an art (what a time to be alive). I wonder if the fact that he didn’t refuse any service to the couple, just the decorating, and that they insisted he be their baker, not any of the others, factored into the Court’s decision.

The biggest factor seemed to be that the court found inconsistencies from the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, from the article –

Kennedy noted that the commission had ruled the opposite way in three cases brought against bakers in which the business owners refused to bake cakes containing messages that demeaned gay people or same-sex marriage.

Also that Phillips himself faced discrimination from the Commission, noting –

The Commissioner called baker Jack Phillip’s faith “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use.” He compared Phillip’s “sincerely held religious beliefs” to slavery and the Holocaust. As a result, Justice Kennedy argued in his majority opinion: “the Court cannot avoid the conclusion that these statements cast doubt on the fairness and impartiality of the Commission’s adjudication of Phillips’ case.”

It seems the court looked at the results of the commission as discriminatory (or handled very poorly/illegally), that he didn’t refuse all services, and that decorating the cake falls under ‘expression as an artists’.

To me, the most important thing is the Court recognizing the inconsistencies. The commission was fine with a few other cases who refused to make a cake when they weren’t Christians. There have also been a case of a Muslim baker refusing service (entirely) to a gay couple, that hasn’t (not to sound too Foxnewsish) been covered much in the news. Personally, I wonder if there is a case to be made for extra protections for extremely minority religions like Islam, however I doubt there are any legit legal ones. However, there seems to be the bigger issue of what level of non-service is allowed? An incident last year where a coffee shop owner who was gay kicked a pro-life group out because they were Christians (I’m not linking anything because the only articles I found were rightwing sites or far-left site that celebrated the incident); it is unclear whether the group was causing a disturbance. When you compare that to the Starbucks case recently, it would seem you can’t even kick someone out for not being a paid customer.

While I fully support churches and and pastors from not preforming ceremonies for certain people, purveyors of other goods and services make me nervous. Maybe it is because I’m from the South, and the concept of ‘no X allowed’ whether X is Muslim, gay, or Christian, just really hits me the wrong way. I do see the slippery slop argument on both sides. Can you ban gay people from your restaurant, can you force a Muslim to draw a picture of Muhammad? It is a strange, delicate balancing act and I wish people would recognize the nuance in their discussions instead of just attacking each other as seems to be the go to in these cases.

That was longer than I anticipated so, on to other things I’ve been reading or listening to.

In the ‘not understanding the Bible, but a huge fan of Christian Nationalism’ category this week we have Franklin Graham holding rallies, with this brilliant quote –
“Progressive? That’s just another word for godless,” Graham told a group of supporters, according to the Times.

Word

Rethink Now has a list of the Seven Books Every Christian should read. I’ve only read on (Mere Christianity) and really only plan on reading two others on the list, I hadn’t even heard of some of them. Thoughts?

I finished reading Practicing the King’s Economy: Honoring Jesus in How We Work, Earn, Spend, Save, and Give, so look for the review next week.
I also started reading The Stand a few days ago, and while I’m over 300 pages in, that just means I still have almost 800 to go.

Finally, have you ever looked at a clock (especially an analog) and it seems like the at which you looked last longer than the other movements? That is because your mind didn’t register what you saw at first, then interpolated it back as the time you first registered in a phenomena known as Chronostasis. Not really related to anything, but interesting nonetheless.

Podcasts
Whitehorse Inn has some thoughts on Finding Jesus in the Psalms. I didn’t start reading the Psalms until about a year, year and half ago. They are incredible, especially for understanding emotions for yourself and your expression to God. It is also a massive book, the longest in the Bible. Psalm 119 itself is longer than James, but somehow in many churches (baptist and non-denom) we miss them almost entirely.

The Gospel Coalition has a talk from Don Carson, What is an Evangelical. Among others, he points out the sociological, political, and linguistic issues with the word. It will be interesting to see what Christians (at least American Protestants) call themselves in the next generation, or the following one, especially after the damage Trump has done, but also due to the word expanding to mean so much, that it basically no long means anything.

Remembering My Grandmother

May 30, 2018December 13, 2019 / J.K. / 1 Comment

No book review today, as I am heading to a funeral. Louise Dueree “Dee” Turner, my grandmother, died on Monday morning. She would have turned 90 this August, but even more amazingly, in less than two weeks, she and my granddad would have been celebrating their 73 anniversary.

I lived next to my grandparents from about eight years old until I left for college, and when school was out of the summer, my brother and I spent our days with them. They lived on a little more than 30 acres and she had numerous gardens in which she grew Day Lilies. For decades she sold the flowers, but mostly the bulbs for others to plan in their gardens. Later in life, I’d come across people from surrounding cities and all they knew about my area was an old lady that sold bulbs to their garden clubs. One lady actually remembered there being two little boys running around the gardens.

Along with selling flowers she was in charge of the church kitchen that made the Wednesday night meals every week. She was an incredible cook and well known for her abilities. One of my favorite memories about her is the pancake breakfasts she would cook every Christmas morning. They also hosted massive Easter and Labor Day celebrations at their house that would have dozens and dozens of people attending, including her sisters and my dad’s cousins and all their children. She loved the beach and for years they and all her sisters and their husbands spent October in New Smyrna Beach. All this despite have had three hip replacements, she was so active she wore out her first one and needed a replacement.

Mrs. MMT actually lived with them for a little over two months while I was away at grad school and right before we were married. They watched old movies with Clarke Gable together and my grandmother enjoyed having her there so much, she would often try to convince me to have us live there for a while after we were married.

She first started showing signs of Alzheimer’s about eight years ago, and unfortunately it only become worse. She hasn’t recognized me or Mrs. MMT in a few years and while she always loved seeing Sprout, she was never entirely sure who she was. Maybe a year or so ago, she starting not knowing my parents and this past January we moved them to an assisted living facility with memory care from the house they built more than 40 years ago.

My granddad woke up around 5:30 on Monday and my grandmother told him she was cold, he got her a blanket and told her he loved her and went out to watch TV. When he checked back in on her a little bit later, she was dead. In some ways, it is comforting to know that she went quickly, and that if she suffered, it didn’t last long. However, for him, it happened too quick. He told me yesterday that he wished that he had been able to hold her just one more time.

As we talked about her yesterday, he said that she was a great wife and mother, that they had a long happy life, and that he could not have asked for anything more. Best of all, and the most comforting, is that I know we will all see her again. She’ll have no more hip pain, and she will remember everyone when we all meet again.

Dee Turner
August 31, 1928 – May 28, 2018

Stuff From the Week

May 25, 2018 / J.K. / Leave a comment

Articles
NFL to make players stand for the anthem. The owners know their fans are mostly conservative, holding libertarian and small government values, with focus on individual rights, so they are making people stand up during a song about the government. It is almost as if the fans are actually more upset about something else.

Speaking of something else going on, White Evangelicals lead the way!…in rejecting refugees. We were the least likely group survey to support taking in more refugees. For the group that says we take most seriously Biblical Literatlism, we don’t appear to be very good at the whole caring for the widow/orphan/poor/foreigner thing or loving our neighbor. Seemingly unrelated to the article as a whole, they point our towards the end that when asked in 2011 about personal indescritions by the president, we, more than anyone else, said it mattered, but in 2016, we said it mattered the least. The author is clearly pointing it out to kick whatever little shred of moral authority we have left right in the balls. It is pretty embarrassing, and yet another reason we continue to lose the upcoming generation.

Speaking of lost generations, according to the federal reserve, about 40% of Americans couldn’t cover a $400 emergency. On the whole, we remain terrible with money.

Quickly – of course Amazon is recording out conversations, apparently if the president blocks you on twitter it is a violation of your first amendment rights, hopefully the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre will win their case against this nut job, and finally, apparently even the American Military has studied the ‘strategic implications of American Millennialism.’

Podcast
I was going to recommend this Intelligence Squared Debate podcast about denculearization of North Korea, but now the summit has been called off. I didn’t really have a strong stance one way or the other, and after listening to the debate, I’m not sure that has changed. However, there is a lot of good information if you are interested in current foreign affairs. The problem is, our new cycle and events in the world happen too fast. I listened to this, then heard this genius say we should use the ‘Libya Model’ and assumed Kim would call it off. If you don’t know, Moammar Gadhafi was Libya’s leader before he was sodomized by a bayonet and dragged into the street and killed. I’m not foreign policy expert, but that seems like something Kim wouldn’t like to participate in.

Mortification of Spin was an episode up about church polity (governing/administrative structure of the church). It isn’t so much about types of church polity as it is about having an Elder board. Overall, it is an interesting topic to me, and one I’ve gone back and forth on over the years.

Stuff from last week

May 22, 2018May 22, 2018 / J.K. / Leave a comment

I haven’t been posting much recently, partly due to time and partly due to disinclination, but last week a came across a few things I found interesting, that I thought I’d share. The plan was for it to go up on Friday, but the Monday Morning Wife and I had our 10th Anniversary and I got distracted.

Russell Moore spoke on The Gospel Coalition Podcast about the obstacles of religious liberty. Depending on your perspective, it’s not what you think. I thought the points he makes about us looking too much for the government to help us and enforce our view of morality were really good; though he does fail to note the painful irony that some of the biggest pushers for ‘religious liberty’ and government enforced morality are often the most ardent anti-government.

Somewhat related, Theocast talks about losing a generation at church. I’m less concerned than most people, though probably not concerned enough, because I think it is inevitable. We were never a ‘Christian Nation’, whatever that means, but for the most of our history, we’ve been a solidly Christian culture, but we aren’t any more. This means we are shedding some of the cultural only hanger’s on. I guess I should care more, but I don’t.

The other thing that stuck out to me about this particular episode was the lack of political honesty. There is one quick mention/jab about not agree with ‘they younger people’ and their politics, but no real discussion about the impact politics has played on losing more and more young people. When I was growing up, Monica Lewinsky was the worst thing ever, a national moral tragedy. Many of the same people publicly deriding Clinton are now, 20 years later, some of the most vocal supporters of Trump. A democrat being immoral is cause for massive public outcry, but these people really don’t seem to give a shit how many hookers and pornstars a republican bangs. All these leaders have traded in the Gospel of Christ of the promise of power from Christian Nationalism, and we are the lost generation?

I could go on and on about this, because it pisses me off so, but if the ‘church’ keeps acting like questioning the Moral Majority or St. Ronnie is blasphemy, and cannot have adult conversations about political issues such as healthcare, minimum wage, income inequality, etc. without resorting to beating up tired old strawmen or just screaming ‘socialism’, we are going hemorrhage anyone under 65 faster than we can imagine.

Speaking of being somewhat bad with economics, I started a new book – Practicing the King’s Economy: Honoring Jesus in How We Work, Earn, Spend, Save, and Give
It seems really good so far, except they seem to think per capita GDP is useful measure, confuse mean for median, don’t accurately represent inflation, and ignore income inequality. I guess this isn’t surprising, because those things tend to get political, and they state at the beginning, they don’t want to do that, for, you know…reasons. Anyway from a Biblical prospective, it is pretty interesting so far, especially the focus on community.

I haven’t written many reviews lately because I’m still trying to power through this – 50 Core Truths of the Christian Faith: A Guide to Understanding and Teaching Theology I’m a big fan of theology, and the part where he gets rolling are really good, but it is slow going as it is a bit repetitive, a little redundant, and well, over 400 pages.

Lastly for books, I read Notes From the Underground, which is really interesting, but I have this copy – Notes From Underground And The Grand Inquisitor. I recommend against this as the second half of the books is an excerpt from The Brothers Karamazov (Everyman’s Library), which I already own.

Finally, you may have seen that we moved our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. There is plenty written out there about the political consequences of this, but I found this article from a Catholic viewpoint to be interesting. If you didn’t grow up in the dispensational work, or studied your way out, Christian Zionism can seem really odd, so I appreciate the view from someone else.

That’s all for now, hopefully, I’ll have some reviews up soon.

10 Year Anniversary

May 17, 2018May 17, 2018 / J.K. / 3 Comments

I don’t typically post personal things, especially pictures or anything that could constitute ‘social media’, that’s not the point of a pretend theologian. However, today is actually my 10 Anniversary. Look at these young, sexy, jackasses:

There is a lot I could say here about the ups and downs of marriage; the struggles and blessings; expectations vs. realities; or even about marrying the greatest woman I know, but I’m going to take a hard pass on all that and just post the pictures. We dropped Sprout off with my parents today, to have a couple day staycation alone, and my parents live on the same street as the wedding venture in which we were married. So, after dropping her off, we swung by and took a picture in front of the alter.

The day we were married 10 years ago was a pretty, picture perfect day of 73 degrees, sunny, and probably only 60% humidity or so. Today was hot and rainy and we didn’t really think ahead to dress up or anything, but here we are:

20180517_125320

Mrs. MMT is beautiful as always, and I look basically the same as 10 years ago, just older and fatter. I could write pages and pages about the years we’ve spent, and I still can’t believe it’s gone by so quickly, but for now, three cheers for 10 years.

Money and Church Buildings

May 14, 2018 / J.K. / Leave a comment

A few weeks ago, I wrote a short series on money (parts 1, 2, 3, & 4), and one of the things I talked about was, what to do with it? I realize I’m in a somewhat unique situation in wondering what to do with extra money, but it will make more sense if you just read those original posts. However, I wrote all those posts (though the publishing overlapped) before our pastor made an announcement one Sunday that caught us all be surprise.

Our church meets in a public elementary school, which has been our meeting place for six years or so (I’m not entirely sure, we’ve only been members for about three years). Our current contract takes us through this August with a one year open to take us through the summer of 2019. Our pastor indicated that there was a new principle at the school was not interested in the option year or a contract renewal, and therefore we would need to be out the first week of August. Also, it wouldn’t really be August because renovations to the school were to take place over the summer, so, actually, we had until Memorial Day. This all came up in the middle of March.

We also rent some office/meeting space in an industrial area down the street. Providentially, the same week that we find out we are not longer to meet in the school, the landlords of our office space stop by one day and tell the staff that the space across the parking lot (roughly 17,000 square feet) will soon be available, you know, in case we are interested.

I skip through the meetings, drama, stress, rushing around that ensued over the next few weeks, but ultimately, we decided to go for it. The idea was to find our own space in the next two or three years, but, it appears, God had another plan. All that to say, it was going to take some money. The space was actually two spaces, one was an office/warehouse type use and the other was basically a call center/cubicle farm. Estimates for renovating the space came in at around $900,000. Now, we are a church of 300-350 people or so, or about 120-130 families, with probably about 80-85 of which are regularly attending, money giving members. Realistically, a pledge of $12-15K per family (average) isn’t terrible, that is, when you are fundraising for two or three years.

We had about six weeks. Not only did we need to ‘raise’ that money in six weeks, we also needed a little more than a third of it in cash, in May (by today, actually). Again, I’ll fast forward through the sleeplessness of the elders and staff team, the endless meetings, the tireless efforts of a few volunteers, and the arguments/debates/conversations about other possible cheaper options. Two weeks ago was what we called commitment Sunday, where everyone wrote down what they were committed to bring in up front cash and what they could give over the next year and yesterday was the culmination of that phase as people brought their first checks. Ultimately, we fell slightly short of the goal, but people committed to give roughly $862,000 over the next year. However, the we do have some reserve funds that we can easily commit to cover the gap, so the project moves forward.

Construction drawings have been produced and submitted and hopefully work will begin soon. The target date for us to have our first service will be the first Sunday of November. In the mean time, after a few great meetings with the school staff, we’ve worked out an agreement in which we will still meet at the school through October. Luckily, there are never any problems with contractors or construction timelines, right?

It was been a fascinating few months for out community. The discussion among people regarding money, giving, finance have been incredible and have grown and matured us as a body. The church community itself is not very old (maybe around 20 years) and has meet in a few random places over the years, with no specific place as home. Now, we will have an actual space, that is ours all day every day, and for the next 10 years. This will be longer than we’ve ever been in one place as a church. It is longer than we’ve ever been in one place as a family (our ten year anniversary is in three days). So, there is a lot of faith and trust that this is where God wants us (community and family) to be. It has changed the mindset of the community for what commitment looks like, with time (specifically long term thinking/goals) and obviously money. Some of the stories that have some from this have been incredible. Two quickly, one woman is retired and living on a pension, she has decided to take a job and give the entire entire salary over the next year (I could write a whole post on this story) and one of the build/design professionals we contacted was so impacted by our story that he actually gave our pastor $1,000 to go towards the building fund.

That was really the point of me writing this post, which has now rambled on longer than anticipated. We prayed that God would guide us in budgeting a giving out of what He has blessed us with, and now, giving to the building fund alone will be a largest budget category over the next year, followed by our mortgage, and then our regular giving. To be honest, it is kind of scary. It is a lot of money, and a huge commitment for us. We are sacrificing a few things here and there, mostly notably holding off on replacing an old car. You can actually hear Mrs. MMT discuss this here (she tells our story in an interview style interaction one morning with the pastor and one of the elders, who also shares a story) if you are interested, and you can even go to the main page here to see the entire timeline with updates as we received them as well as more stories of people discussing giving and commitment to the church.

This entire story has really reinforced to me the importance of how we handle money as Christians. I wrote about the importance of budgeting, because without it, we don’t have the flexibility to be able to give more when called upon. I realize many people struggle and their income just isn’t there to give what they’d like, but my focus is on those who have the means, but don’t pay enough attention. The amount of people I’ve heard from over the past few months who looked back through their spending (some for the first time) or made budgets for the first time, and were in shock over the amount of money they wasted on certain things has been surprising. I know many people don’t pay attention, but this is really some poor stewardship as a whole church community. People were finally looking, and coming to me saying, I can’t believe I spend $2,000 a year in cable, or I can’t believe I spent so much money on going out to eat. They were essentially finding hundreds of dollars a month in their budgets.

Obviously, this is something we as Christians should talk about more. Money should be much less of a taboo than it is, especially considering the amount of time Jesus spent discussing money. He is our example, and if we take that seriously, we are clearly failing. I think it is a topic I will try to write on more, here on this site.

Anyway, it is an exciting and scary time of us as a family here at MMT (the term of our lease will have sprout entering as a pre-schooler and leaving as a teenage) and for our church community. God has blessed us and given as an opportunity to pour much of that back in to our community, so I just wanted to write that our and share with the few of you who still read this. More updates to follow, I’m sure. It should be fun.

Charity & IRS Audits

February 26, 2018 / J.K. / 5 Comments

I recently finished reading Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, which I may review later, but I thought there was an interesting anecdote in one of the last chapters, one of them relates a story of man he new that was audited by the IRS due to the amount of money he gave to the church. His point being, what if all Christians gave so much money that tax auditors had to give it a second look.

I thought, man, how much is this guy giving as a percent of his income that would make the IRS suspicious? I could imagine a situation where giving goes up dramatically in one year. Say someone started a new job with a bigger salary, or took a big promotion/made partner, or something along those lines. If you are living on the fixed budget, then you’d have more money to give. Just because you have a raise, doesn’t mean you mortgage or groceries go up.

This is actually what happened to Mrs. MMT and me. Last year(ish) we both took different positions (that were promotions) with new companies. You almost always get a bump in salary if you go to a new company or get a promotion, and we did both, the both of us, so it was kind of a double double raise. However out expenses didn’t move up in the same proportion as our income, obviously, so we were able to increase our giving rate. We also spent a little more on ourselves and dramatically increased our savings rate, but overall we felt like, when faced with the question, ‘what should we do with this nice bump in income the Lord has blessed us with?’ part of the answer has to be to give more, and not in the total amount.

Clearly, if you make $50K and your salary goes up 10% to $55K, if you are holding to a 10% giving, then your giving would go from $5K to $5.5K. But like I mentioned earlier, if you have a handle on the rest of your expenses, you should be able to give more than 10% to church and other charities. It is not like the tithe is a hard and fast rule. We, as Christians, are not bound to 10%, and we can give more. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:7 – Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

We were more convicted of this during the summer when our pastor did two sermons (Part 1 & 2) on generosity as part of a large series on Money, Sex, and Power. It is also something I had been thinking about since we started our new jobs. We know we are ‘supposed’ to give 10% and we are supposed to save 15%. But if you have a large salary increase, what would it look like if you saved 25%, but still only gave 10%? That can’t be right, right? So, that is a point that the pastor was pointing out, what do your percentages look like. But, I digress too much, maybe I should make that into another post.

So, back to the present. I filled our taxes. I like using the H&R Block Tax Software. They have a cool feature that does an audit check for you and will tell you if something is really bad or just curious. Well, we were flagged. The system told us to double check out charitable deductions, because we had given a large amount. Of course, it wasn’t actually a large amount, just relative to income, it was a percentage they thought could raise interest for an audit.

I had just finished reading that book, so it made me interested. I’m imagining what it would look like to give 20-25% or more to the church, but I’m getting flagged for barley more than 10%. Why? Well, I looked into it. The average American only gives 3% of their adjusted gross income to charity. The most recent Pew study shows that 70.6% of American’s claim Christianity. So, if we all gave 10% and everyone else gave zero (which certainly isn’t the case, 1.9% claim Judaism, another .9% claim Islam, so there are a few more with the 10% guideline. Of course it would be ridiculous to think only religious people (or only these particular religions) give money to charity), then the average charitable giving of an American should be around 7%, not adjusting for things like income and religious affiliation, etc.

Maybe not surprisingly, the more money you make, the less you actually give. This article from Fool shows giving peaking at incomes of $50-75K with 6.8%, and then declines in every bracket until your income hits one million. Forbes breaks it down in even more specifically, take a look at your income and see how you compare. People start giving $3K once they make about $65K (notice, that is less than 5%), but don’t add that extra thousand to bring their total giving to $4K until they make almost twice that, at $125K (now we are closer to 3%). If you go from making $100K to $200K, you should be double your giving, instead you are going from $3.6K to $5.6K, at this point we are down to about 2.5%.

So, two things here, not only are we not giving more as a percentage as our income goes up, we are actually giving less, but we aren’t even giving close to 10%. No wonder it is a red flag that someone would give 10%. Imagine what it would look like if all Christians about a certain income gave 10%, and then as they made more that percentage increased? If we said from our abundance, we give even more back? What affect on society? Instead from more abundance, we become even less faithful. It is almost like we can only serve one master. It also frustrates me that so many Christians oppose certain types of welfare and government safety nets, claiming that charity should support people, not the government. While I don’t necessarily disagree, it is beyond hypocritical to claim that will not even giving 10% to your own church.

Anyway, this post became longer and less coherent than I intended. It was an interesting coincidence that I was challenged by this book with the example of the guy audited, only to then have my tax software tell me I needed to double check my own numbers, to then finding out Americans give so little as a percent of the income. Maybe I’ll break out some of these ideas in later post and try better next time.

Some thoughts on Lent

February 19, 2018 / J.K. / 6 Comments

Growing up Baptist, I think my first exposure to the concept of Lent, in which someone gave up something for the period of time leading up the Easter, came from the movie 40 Days and 40 Nights. That was my senior year in high school and I don’t think I actually knew a catholic until one of my roommates a few years later in college. I guess because of this, I’ve never really ‘got’ Lent.

It was amusing last week as Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, approached. Most of the people in my immediate office are Catholics. This is true now for the first time in the 10 years in which I’ve work there. So, I think there is a bit of Baptists and Beer thing going on (if you go fishing, why should you take two Baptist instead of one? They’ll both watch the other to make sure they don’t drink your beer), in which they are all watching to see who is giving up what and who went to Ash Wednesday Mass. The best part was on Friday, as they are supposed to abstain from meat, one of them had already forgotten and was called out right before he ate a chicken biscuit. This is the same guy who ate steak every night for the week leading up to Lent, because that is what he was giving up.

If you don’t know, Lent is not in the Bible. We, as Christians, are not required to participate, or to fast, or really follow any particular rules about Lent. The concept comes from the Temptation of Christ, when he spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, fasting and preparing for his ministry. As a spiritual exercise, I find it fascinating. That being said, I don’t really understand how, and almost wish that the works and rules based requirements of Catholics were actually Biblical requirements. In a sense, it would be easy to give up something for the sake of giving up something. Or skipping meat on Fridays, just because, though fish is allowed, basically because Aquinas didn’t think it tasted good. Apparently, part of the fasting and abstinence is just to give up something you enjoy.

However, if you are seeking a spiritual discipline, and want a reason for what you are giving up, it becomes more difficult. I feel like I really need a why. It doesn’t work for me to say, I’ll give up pizza, because I like pizza. I guess, ultimately, that is often the point of fasting, but as a Lenten practice, it seems odd. Maybe this is due to wanting to have a counter balance. So, I give up pizza, what am I supposed to do with that? If I just replace it with something that is also good, like burgers, what have I gained. I’ve heard from some who fast from dinner on Fridays and instead spend the time they would be cooking and eating in prayer. That seems interesting. This is why I consider myself to only have had on successful Lent.

It was years ago, and I gave up video games and decided to use the time playing them when I get home from work, to read the Gospels. This did in fact change me. I started reading more, especially studying the Bible and theology, to the point that now I have a blog about book reviews. Also, I never regained the habit of playing video games only a daily basis and actually haven’t played any in a few years, ever since Sprout was a few months old.

In this way, I do think I completed a spiritual exercise. I have up something that was pointless, and began to study the Bible. But I’ve struggled to ever replicate this again. As you start to think about things to give up, you mind if often drawn away from spiritual things. For instance, the only other time I actually gave up something was last year, and I have up alcohol. Seemed like a good idea, but then I lost a few pounds from it, so it kind of became about health; plus I never found something to replace it with, or any kind of ‘why’.

As I talk with others looking to engage in a Lenten abstinence, the same issues seem to come up. People decide to get up earlier in the morning and go to the gym, or give up red meat or sugar, to lose a few points. Those are basically New Year’s resolutions. They are good things, nothing wrong with either of them, but tying them to God seems disingenuous. Likewise, people struggling with alcoholism or lust will give up getting drunk or porn. These are already things you shouldn’t be doing.

Anyway, I guess this is just a long way of saying, I don’t know how to Lent. I’d love to hear from any of my readers as to what you’ve given up and why, either this year or in the past. Finally, any good satire type things to give up are always appreciated, probably my favorite two that I’ve heard is people giving up their Catholicism, or giving up their virginity.

It is Well

January 12, 2018 / J.K. / 4 Comments

This is a little different style and song than I typically like to post. I’ve never actually heard of these guys before, but of the 10 or so version of this song I listened to on YouTube, I liked them the best.

It is Well with My Soul is a hymn written in the 1870’s by Horatio Spafford, a Chicago lawyer and Presbyterian Elder. His first son died in 1871, the same year the Great Chicago Fire also destroyed a large portion of his real estate investments. In 1873, he decides to take his wife and four daughters on a trip to England. He had to stay back for work, but planned to meet up with them later.

On November 22, their ship crashed with another. His wife survived, but all his daughters died. She sent him a message telling him what happened and he hopped a ship over to England to be with her. As he was passing the general location of the wreck, he wrote this hymn. They would eventually have three more children, but sadly lose one of them, their other son, as well.

I was thinking of this song as we drove to the doctor/hospital this past Monday. I suppose I should have had a little more hope than I did, apparently bleeding is normal during some pregnancies. Mrs. MMT knew a few people that experienced this. After 16 months of trying to get pregnant, I had mostly lost hope. I’ve always been pretty cynical as it is. It was odd driving down the road, basically trying not to think about a miscarriage, trying to hope that the doctor would tell us there was no problem, and then thinking of this song.

I wasn’t sure how to act. Was it in my head because I had read the story of Spafford in November, then sang this song one Sunday in December? I thought maybe it was a movement by the Holy Spirit to comfort me, but of course, that’s not what I wanted it to be. It retrospect, that is likely what it was. After getting home, Mrs. MMT and I discussed it, she too felt a calm, maybe even a peace about the miscarriage, despite the obvious pain and sense of loss, and the returning sense of hopelessness.

In a terrible coincidence, last November or early December, we had schedule an appointment with a fertility specialist for this coming Monday. We found out we were pregnant on Christmas Day, so instead of a fertility appointment, we set up our first sonogram appointment, as this would be the eight week mark this coming Monday. Well, turns out, they want to see you a week after a miscarriage, so we replaced our sonogram appointment with a follow up appointment to make sure Mrs. MMT is alright (physically) and to maybe give us a reason as to what might have happened.

We are not hopeful they will have an answer for us. That isn’t a knock on the doctors or nurses, it is just a fact that about one quarter of pregnancies end in miscarriage. So, at this point, I don’t expect them to tell us that this was anything but a statistic. They will also let us know when they think we can start trying again.

So, for now, we are sad, hurt, disillusioned and at a loss; Mrs. MMT is still dealing with the physical after affects; and every thing just seems a little shitty over all; but we know that it is well.

John 14:27 –
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Monday Morning Theologian

A blog of sound and fury, signifying nothing

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