Nice Whig

There is something more winsome and more genuine about British political figures. Ever since I first heard Tony Blair speak, I've thought so.

A new mayor was elected in London a few days ago. His name is Boris Johnson, which sounds to me like a strange Russian-English hybrid sort of person. Nevertheless, this guy is a joker. Everything about his victory speech - from his crazy hair and casual demeanor to his candid, complementary comments about his opponents, not to mention the awesome concluding remarks - spoke of a kind of genuineness and sincerity that I think is missing in American politics. He even made a statement to "the vast multitudes" who voted against him, "I will work flat-out from now on to earn your trust..." and later stated to his supporting voters, "I know there will be many whose pencils hovered for an instant before putting their 'x' in my box. I will work flat-out to repay and to justify your confidence."

Now I know that a politician is a politician is a politician. But there is just something that is enjoyable about seeing a political speech from another culture. It's just refreshing. Maybe we should switch leaders with the U.K. for a year and just see how it goes. They can't do too much harm, and they might even have a few good ideas to bring the from the other side of the pond.

Plus, how can't you like a speech that ends, "Let's get cracking tomorrow. Let's have a drink tonight."

I lose. We win.

Arise, O Lord, let not man triumph; let the nations be judged in your presence.

Psalm 9:19

I was listening to my mp3 Bible (read by Max McLean, about whose voice the jury is still out) on my way to Starbuck's today. I went to Starbuck's. Get over it. Have you ever tried Izze fruit beverages? They have them there. Anyway...

I was cruising up to the parking lot - cars on I-69 whizzing inches from me - and right before I turned off the engine, I heard the above verse. The following interpretation is taken somewhat out of context, but since I am no longer a Bible student, and a Higher Ed. student instead, I will proceed as I please.

Fun fact: Psalms 9 & 10 quite possibly were originally written as an acrostic poem, each stanza beginning with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet (which I know, kind of). Thanks ESV footnotes!

Digression over. The words "let not man triumph" bounced around numerous times in my brain as I made my way into the store. It's a prayer that I need to pray now, because I know that when I really need to pray it, I probably won't.

And when I say pray it, I mean for myself. In all my grappling with God - whether it be the sinful nature that continues to be at work in me, the submission of my desires and ambitions to His will, or simply my unrelenting unwillingness to accept things that are true about myself, about the cosmos, and about God - I need to pray in advance that I will lose.

If that sounds counterintuitive, it's because it is.

counterintuitive |ˌkountərinˈt(y)oōitiv|adjective
contrary to intuition or to common-sense expectation (but often nevertheless true).

Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm not competitive, or that I think sports are dumb. These are most often times when I find myself completely outmatched by those competing around me. In reality, I really want to win. I'm usually good at keeping my wits about me on the court or the field, but that doesn't mean that winning isn't important to me. I was reminded of this fact on Thursday evening, as I stomped off the field where my ultimate team had just been stomped in much the same fashion. In moments like that, there's nothing to be done that will assuage the anger/frustration/humiliation of losing. And then, as if it weren't bad enough, we had to hold hands in a circle and pray. Awful.

Really, inside of me lives a noxious rebel that wants only for himself to prevail, for his name to be praised by others, for his desires to be met, for his purposes to be achieved. It is an ugly thing, but it is necessary, as I have said, to pray for my own defeat now, when I feel a bit more aware of this rebellious fellow. He needs to lose, or else I will big time, ultimately.

I suppose that this brings a bit of clarity to the notion of gaining one's life by losing it: victory through defeat. I need God to win so that I will lose, so that, with Him, I will win; or rather, we will win. Really it's simple, and as usual, that's the problem. Those truths which appear to be - and essentially are - the most simple are those with which I most often struggle.

But God is just. He will ultimately not allow me to win when I do not deserve it, nor will He allow injustice to prevail. In the end, His righteousness (a.k.a. justice) will rain down:

Sow for yourselves righteousness,
reap the fruit of unfailing love,
and break up your unplowed ground;
for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes
and showers righteousness on you.
Hosea 10:12

Cool. I want to break up my unplowed ground now and ready myself for that shower, because I know that when it comes, I'll probably want to run inside out of the rain - when in reality, the shower is exactly what I need. Hosea speaks of preparation, making straight the way of the Lord (cf. John the Baptist, Mt. 3:3).

It's also neat to think about how the Lord's justice will bring about a righting of all the wrongs of injustice in the world today. This week was Social Justice Week at Taylor. I'm so relevant.

By the way, isn't that picture awesome?

New Music Springs Forth

May 6
Barenaked Ladies - Snacktime (kids album)





May 13
Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs






June 17
Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends





Weezer - Weezer (The Red Album)








Singles Available
Weezer's "Pork and Beans" (available on iTunes)
Coldplay's "Violet Hill" (available FREE until May 6)

Other new releases set for 2008
Dave Matthews Band
David Gray
Oasis
The Postal Service
U2

My Approach To Graduate Studies

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

40 Days & 40 Nights

Well, I've managed to pull off my 40 day fast from blogging. It was tough, but here I am: alive and well.

A quick catch-up on life so far:

The NCAA tournament came and went. I'll say no more.

Spring Break to Chicago was phenomenal. So many lessons learned. Such a great team of students. My first legitimate trip to the Windy City gets an A+.

Highlights included:
- Broccicles: the answer to a healthier generation of Americans
- Gaining a better understanding of God's heart for the poor
- Driving to O'Hare about seventy times (or 3) in Taylor vans
- Challenged thinking about our role in racial reconciliation
- An exploding L train
- Tours of some of the most incredible ministries (especially Pacific Garden Mission)
- Slashed tires (I hate Wheaton)
- Great teaching from the staff at Sunshine Gospel Ministries
- Fantastic food (Chinatown, Little India, Chicago-style pizza)
- Conversations with strangers on public transit and McDonald's/Dunkin Donuts
- 18 wonderful students
- 2 world-class co-leaders
- More fun than a flaming barrel of juggling monkeys riding on unicycles
- Changed hearts with regard to how we should live in light of this incredible 10 days

The post-Chicago return to Upland found me in the midst of one of the toughest academic stretches of my life. Having only been back in Indiana for 4 days, I found myself leaving my wonderful Box at 4 in the morning to catch a flight for the great and wild Pacific northwest. It was a great chance to lead worship at Resonate Church, and to catch up with old friends Hatfield and Kinder. Seattle is a great city; too bad I was doing homework a majority of the weekend. The flight was quite possibly the most productive one I've ever experienced. All that is to say: I made it through.

The next weekend was National Student Leadership Conference here at Taylor. Speakers like J.P. Moreland and Kelly Monroe Kuhlberg made things quite memorable and quite challenging. It inspired my goal of reading one book per week this summer...ambitious?

Last weekend found me deep in the throws of Youth Conference 2008. The Bedinghaus Band (photo courtesy: Karen Taylor) assembled from all the corners of this great nation, including places like Pittsburgh and San Diego, not to mention Grant County Indiana, and rocked six straight worship sets, 2 marathon rehearsals, and 1 outdoor concert...in the course of less than 60 hours. In addition, we partnered with some friends from the Gospel Choir here at TU and had an absolute blast. The weekend was a great success, the most energetic, most fun YC I've ever been a part of (this was my fourth straight). It was also a pleasure to have fellow Jessamine Countian Travis Whalen in the house as the featured speaker for the conference, and the incomparable Rachel Sawyer at the helm (one of YC's co-directors). All in all, central Kentucky made its presence KNOWn...

This past weekend was Heritage Weekend at Taylor, as well as Grandparent's Day, the two-year anniversary of the accident, and the opening and dedication of our brand new prayer chapel here on campus. It was an emotionally intense time, but a good time for our community here.

On a final note, Barack Obama came to Marion, IN! I couldn't believe it when I heard he would be in Grant Co. Naturally, I had to go see this for myself. So we left early on Saturday morning to wait in line for 2 hours in the fairly cold April morning air outside Marion high school. It was well worth it. Barack is even more impressive in person (photo courtesy: Luke Owsley). Something tells me we will be seeing a lot more of this guy...I won't go more into this, b/c I could, and it could literally be 6 or 7 more blog entries on each of the major issues touched on during the 60+ minutes he graced the stage.


In conclusion, it's been a whirlwind 40 days. I've maybe had the equivalent of 25 actual full nights of sleep, but in the end, it's been worth it. All the hard work, the investment of time and energy, the emotional, physical, and intellectual struggle that has taken place, the spiritual challenges, valleys, and victories, and all the laughs, tears, travels, conversations, songs, and lest I forget, probably multiple gallons of coffee...these are the substance of my life as a 22-year old man trying to get through grad school, and of a sinner constantly being made aware of his need for the grace that comes only from a God who has made Himself known and has vested in me His own Spirit to equip me in fulfilling all He has called me to be and to do.

Life is, in the end, a beautiful thing, if for no other reason than our God-given ability to look back on it and say, "Lord, thanks for it all: the good and the bad. This is who I am. This is who You've made me to be. Keep making more of Yourself in me."

Locura del Marzo

(If you only have 5 minutes, please skip to the last paragraph and video at the bottom of this post)

It feels strange, this year, to be so satisfied with looking down at an NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament bracket, finding the name "Kentucky" and seeing next to it the number 1... followed by another 1.

We are an 11 seed,
and I'm perfectly okay with that.

The truth is, as most of you I'm sure are aware, it has been doubtful that we would even receive our invitation to this dance ever since, oh I don't know, the last time I was on ESPN.
I can remember the drive home from Rupp Arena that day. It was the second most miserable one that I can remember (the first being the time we ate at B-Dubs right before the game and had to leave at halftime...if you know what I mean). Hopes had been so high for the one called Billy Clyde. Now we were falling to the likes of San Diego and Gardner-Webb. It was almost enough to make a Big Blue faithful find himself wishing for football season (what?)...

Anyway, that was then; this is now. In less than three days, we will be facing a tough Marquette team in the greatest show in sports. And even though we are missing our best player; in spite of one of the rockiest non-conference seasons I can remember; despite coming up short in our first SEC tournament game, we have a chance. Clearly, one of the most beautiful things about looking at those 64 converging little lines is that they represent, above all else, the simple notion of chaos. "Anything can happen."

All that is to say, I think that my 11-year old self would be ashamed to see how relieved I am with the current state of affairs. A true Wildcat should never be content with anything less than a 1 seed, maybe a 2. A lot of people here (read "Indiana") don't really understand why UK fans seem to hold their team - players and coaches alike - to such a high standard. I will resist the temptation to insert here the obligatory Kelvin Sampson joke - you know, the one about including "high standards" for coaching and the state of Indiana in the same sentence. I digress.

The point is, if you don't understand why it is SO frustrating to see the University of Kentucky Wildcats Men's Basketball program performing at such a "low" level, you didn't grow up in Central Kentucky during the mid-1990s. It's a fact. If the following series doesn't make your heart beat a little faster - Delk, McCarty, Walker, Epps, Mercer, Anderson, Edwards, Padgett, Sheppard, Turner, Evans, Mohammed, Magloire, Mills - you don't get it.

Well, get it...



Go 'Cats!

Feeling Blue?

Good news: This album is still incredible.

About two years ago or so, I started to think that perhaps Weezer's self-titled debut - The "Blue Album" - only appealed to my 16-year old version. I feared that, as I grew older - wiser, more cultured, less apt to teen-angst, no longer taking weekly jaunts on the riding mower in my parents' backyard with my discman and huge headphones and singing my heart out - Rivers Cuomo and his gang of merry geek-rockers had grown, at worst, childish, or at best, something to be filed away under "nostalgia."

And yet, as I sit here at Payne's, taking a momentary pause during the grand production that is Research Portfolio, the simple, driving, consistent sounds of my all-time favorite band are still simple, driving, and consistent. I love it still.

I could go into more detail about why this piece of music sits atop the heap - at least in my mind - but I really do have to get back to work. For now, I will say that there is most definitely a prominent element of nostalgia/familiarity for me in this album. It's like putting on your favorite old t-shirt: the soft, worn cotton feels exactly right against your skin; the cracked and dingy screen-printing used to speak with a greater boldness and originality, and yet it's still funny; the various stains and holes a road-map of your life so far, each with its own harrowing tale of bravery, hilarity, and intrigue. You've had to save it several times from your mother as it hovered perilously above the trash can, and you've felt self-conscious more than a few times when you found yourself wearing it in a slightly more upscale place than you thought you'd be. But the fact remains: that t-shirt is still in your drawer; there are more pictures on Facebook with you wearing it than you not wearing it; and to toss it out because you had somehow outgrown it would be a violation of something deep inside of you.

After a while, every laser in every CD player I've ever owned probably didn't even need that little plastic disc to recite the refrains of classics like "Say It Ain't So" or "Only In Dreams"; it had them memorized. My speakers and headphones knew the chorus to "Holiday" by heart, and my fingers could feel themselves mimicking the opening riff of "My Name Is Jonas" involuntarily. It's as if the membranes of my eardrums were on autopilot when the guitar solo for "Undone" piped through the air, and I didn't even need to close my eyes to picture myself "In The Garage."

This afternoon, I put that old t-shirt back on and realized that, no matter how old I grow, no matter how serious I become, and no matter what new musical frontiers I explore, there will always be a 120 mm × 120 mm sized hole in my heart that can only be filled by one color...