More Random Thoughts

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1. After going on the offensive, you should probably expect people to be defensive. It makes sense.

2. All this blaming of Sarah Palin about the shooting makes me like her more. I mean if liberals hate her this much, she must be really awesome.
3. Four pastors I am familiar with, participated in a roundtable discussion about internet presence. I watched a little of it yesterday and then after the BCS championship game, 2 of them mocked Cam Newton on Twitter. Nice. And War Eagle.
4. Every station except Fox has blamed conservative rhetoric on the AZ shooting. Why do you make fun of Fox again?
5. Just because I win an argument does not mean I am right.

Random Thoughts – National Championship Edition

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1. I would like to first thank all those who are making obnoxious comments about Auburn winning the BCS National Championship. It makes it way more fun.

2. My wife actually saw more going on than the ESPN commentators. She saw that Cam’s interception was  tipped and they never pointed that out. She also was incredulous that the commentators were wondering if the ball got out of the in-zone on the safety. She’s a looker too.

3. This might have been the only game we watched from beginning to end all year.

4. We had to watch the game on the internet (ESPN3) and they kept showing the Roll Tide commercial over and over. Classy ESPN classy.

5. Auburn fans love Auburn and being an AU fan even when they lose. A National Championship is just icing on the cake.

6. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why not put a TV in the box with the commentators so that the millions of people watching on TV are not minutes ahead of them on actually knowing what is going on? In the game. They are commenting on.

7. OK, OK…Chizik was a good hire. I take it all back.

8. This is my 3rd undefeated season as a fan.

9. I always thought it would be hard to match the ’93 season. It was.

10. I believe in Auburn and love it.

Go Ahead and Be Nobody Special

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I’m in book five of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Horse and His Boy. Since it happens to everyone, like myself, who rereads books over and over, it goes without saying that I am seeing things this time never noticed before. For example, this short speech by the Hermit of the Southern March to Bree, the talking horse, on his way home to Narnia after being in slavery:

My good Horse,” said the Hermit… “My good Horse, you’ve lost nothing but your self-conceit. No, no, cousin. Don’t put back your ears and shake your mane at me. If you are really so humbled as you sounded a minute ago, you must learn to listen to sense. You’re not quite the great Horse you had come to think, from living among poor dumb horses. Of course you were braver and cleverer than them. You could hardly help being that. It doesn’t follow that you’ll be anyone very special in Narnia. But as long as you know you’re nobody special, you’ll be a very decent sort of Horse, on the whole, and taking one thing with another. (emphasis mine)
This is the message you will never hear in schools, TV commercials or churches. In fact you will hear the very opposite. “You are special!” is the mantra of well, everyone. The idea is everyone is really, really special. And to a point, I suppose it is true. But if everyone is special then no one is special. So, then, of course, the goal is to be more special by doing special, specialized things. Distinguish yourself.
Schools tell you, “you are innately special so do something special and change the world.” The commercials tell you, “you are special, buy our product, change the world.” And the evangelical churches? There are two kinds of pastors in the main. Those who speak at conferences with Green Rooms and those who want to do so. How could they have any other message besides one in which the listener walks away with the purpose of doing something special to change the world? All for the glory of God.
I mean, who would want to be a person no one has ever heard of? What kind of person just goes about their business in this rock-star culture? What pastor wants to remain nameless in year-in and year-out obscurity? When fame and reputation and notoriety are ripe for the picking? Why would you be Greta Garbo, when there’s YouTube?
But I say, “Be nobody special.” Do your job. Take care of your family. Clean your house. Mow your yard. Read your Bible. Attend worship. Pray. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Love your spouse. Love your kids. Be generous. Laugh with your friends. Drink your wine heartily. Eat your meat lustily. Be honest. Be kind to your waitress. And expect no special treatment. And do it all quietly.
The problem is that the zeitgeist of this age is you should let nothing stop you from being special. And the most especially vulnerable to this sermon are the young people who after a semester of college are now experts at being special. And the preachers of this message, regardless of the medium, are nothing if not earnest. And it is not hard to imagine why. Telling someone they are not special sounds cruel. But I disagree.
The “you’re nobody special” message may be the most freeing message of all. For now, you can just be yourself. Over against being the abstract, “special”, you can land on the hard concrete reality of being yourself. No need to be the “pie in the sky” version of someone else’s idea of what special is. You can now just love God, love others and be nobody. And as long as you know this. “…you’re nobody special – you’ll be a very decent sort of horse, on the whole, and taking one thing with another.”

Random Thoughts – Winter Storm Edition

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1. I am trying to think of something worse than being stuck in the house with 3 small children and no power – nothing is coming to mind.

2. If we get an ice storm and lose power, I’m blaming George W. Bush.

3. Soooo, do I look like a fool now and go get lots of batteries and other essentials or look like a fool later and play it cool now?

4. I can’t believe I paid all that money for a new TV and it does not take batteries.

5. The good news about losing power is that if the power goes out, we have to – so as to not be wasteful – eat what is in the fridge. Also, because of all those kids in China starving.

6. Here is a shot of me on Monday morning.

7.  I think this is the fifth snow Birmingham has gotten since we moved back just over a year ago. You can thank me in the comment section.

8. If Steve Jobs cared about those of us who could might possibly be caught in winter storm without power, he would provide tethering.

9. You know all those people who are frown-faced naysayers who say, “I’ll believe it’s going to snow when I see it!”? I say we call them, Eustace Scrubb.

10. In light of my first thought, I wonder how the grandparents would fare with the kids…

Random Thoughts – Early Morning Edition

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I am up with a sick daughter but not up enough to finish a post tentatively titled, “Stop It: In Defense of the American Dream.” So here are some early morning thoughts which I may disavow later in the day…

1. Thanks to whoever left me the Target gift card in my box at school. It made it possible to buy our first TV since we got married back in 1999.

2. Because of this I am now starting to dream about Narnia nightly.

3. It looks like we could get snow this weekend and I’m as anxious as my kids about it.

4. For some reason we have let the word ‘consumer’ become a bad word. But if I am consuming a product, it is a product someone with God-given talent produced. I’m not sure it’s so simple as we think it is. Right Now I’m consuming a 32 inch flat screen. And Aristocats.

5. Why am I so tired?

A Surprising Thought About Thomas Kinkade’s Art

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Since seminary I’ve been gathering books on art and trying to learn about a subject and discipline that escaped me for so long. I’m no expert, of course and have never claimed to know much. But there is art I like a lot and art I do not like.

For years I have bemoaned the artistry of Thomas Kinkade. When I picture the quaint, fairy-tale like house beside a perfect stream nestled among picturesque hills and vales full of glorious trees, I would decry such “precious moments-ness.”

But if I am honest -which is hard in matters of art – I must admit how much I would like to live in a place like that. Mainly because I want all the fairy tales to be true. There is not so deep inside of me a longing for all that he is trying to capture. I am sure it is not cool. And it is not technical. But if I were to stumble upon such a scene, I am sure it would bring me joy. And I cannot imagine for moment saying, “No, No, this is all wrong! Too perfect!”

Certainly, I cannot be alone. For even the most discriminating artists and critics would, if on a hike, be glad to come upon such a place and be glad to take tea in such environs.

Random Thoughts

matt b redmond6 Comments

1. I looked at Twitter the other day and was sad I did so.

2. If Willie Nelson sings “Amazing Grace” is it ‘Christian Music’?

3. I ran out of soap and used my wife’s fruity soap. It was awesome.

4. Wife: Will you put that Radiohead album on my iTouch. Me: I love you.

5. Bacon.

6. You know what would be a really radical life? This.

7. If Willie Nelson sang ‘Amazing Grace’ right now, would it be “Contemporary Christian Music”?

8. I read Phantastes by George MacDonald to prepare for this. I have no idea if it is a good book but I cannot stop thinking about Cosmo and all his adventures.

9. I have no desire to take my Christmas tree down. And the lights we hung outside have been dubbed winter lights.

10. My wife dominates me on the Wii. She also looks nice while doing so, which makes it a little easier to handle. But not much.

The Freedom To Be Wrong

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It snowed on Christmas day here in Birmingham. And this was a big deal around here – snow on Christmas day.  But it was a Saturday and church was the next day. Now in many parts of the world a little bit of snow is no big deal for driving. But in Jefferson County, Alabama we are nothing but hills and mountains with no great strategy for sanding/salting bridges. There are no snow plows. And the snow tends to melt and turn to ice overnight. So, yes, we do freak out about snow but with good reason. It’s rare occurrence is only part of the reason.
So we had a decision to make – do we cancel church on Sunday morning or not? We meet on the very absolute top of Red Mountain which someone would have to pull a trailer full of equipment up. And on top of that there are dozens of steps from the parking lot to the building. So we decided to not meet.
Was it a good decision? Before I answer that question, let me tell you what was going on in my mind and get to the point of the post. My great fear as the only pastor on staff was making a false step. And even though the leadership was united on not meeting, I felt very responsible. And here’s the thing – I was really worried about being wrong. I didn’t want to wake up on Sunday morning and see that everything was fine and travel was easy and that we called it off when everyone could have made it. To put it simply, I was afraid of being wrong.
Actually being wrong isn’t really the problem, is it? I did not want to be seen as being wrong. No one, including myself, gets all that worked up over being wrong when no one notices. We don’t like being wrong, when everyone…anyone notices.
We want to put on the show of doing everything well and right. So we don’t take risks, we seek consensus and ignore our convictions. And this extends far beyond the kind of decision we had to make the other night. Decisions about jobs, living accommodations, strategies – you name it and we will find this fear showing up either before the decision is made or after and oftentimes both.
It’s idolatry at it’s finest. We set up in front of people an image of having everything under control and being virtually mistake free and we ask them to marvel at our being ‘right’. And we marvel at ourselves to the point of doing all we can to protect the image. We excuse. We debate. We lash out. We finagle. We argue. We malign. Whatever it takes to safeguard our right-ness we will do. God forbid we are found to be wrong by ourselves. Especially if you are a pastor.
Christmas night I had only one recourse. Believe. Believe in that Baby we had been celebrating all day long. Believe that he had come not as an example alone of righteousness (right-ness) but as the One who would deal with all my wrongs – the One whose tiny cries in the night had dealt the death blow to my need to be right. He alone would be right and he would be right for me and all who looked into his straw-strewn nursery with hope. And not the kind of hope hocked by a world agog with uncertainty. But hope that strips us of all our reason to fear and replaces it with an audacious belief that frees us to be wrong.
In a word, it was OK to be wrong. And only the good news of that day had put me in a position to see it.
Turns out we made a good decision and one many other churches in less difficult places to get to made also. And while I was thankful to God we had made the right decision, I was far more thankful for the freedom to act and be wrong.