"I keep work at work!" I needed to laugh tonight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRHk1xY8GMI&feature=related

JIM GAFFIGAN ON RELIGION....THIS MAKES ME LAUGH....No deep thoughts tonight...just laugh!

I THINK JESUS LAUGHED A LOT!!!

Isn't it a pity?

PLEASE! Copy and paste this in your browser and listen to a beautiful song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDhbLZosFmQ

ERIC CLAPTON singing the Harrison song "Isn't it a Pity?"

Isn't it a pity

Now, isn't it a shame

How we break each other's hearts

And cause each other pain

How we take each other's love

Without thinking anymore

Forgetting to give back

Isn't it a pity

Some things take so long

But how do I explain

When not too many people

Can see we're all the same

And because of all their tears

Their eyes can't hope to see

The beauty that surrounds them

Isn't it a pity

Isn't it a pity

Isn't is a shame

How we break each other's hearts

And cause each other pain

How we take each other's love

Without thinking anymore

Forgetting to give back

Isn't it a pity

It's a pity when we act in any way less than loving to strangers...it is a TRAGEDY when we act unkindly to those we say we love...those to whom loving should be our default setting and grace our way of life.

Someone I love wants to know how to believe in a God. I am torn. There is no "how-to" book about it. No "Six Steps to a more God-Believing You" book from Oprah to share.

I can tonight, however, say that the ONLY way we know we have fallen short of perfect love...or being able to love another perfectly (thus "Isn't it a pity?") is to have an objective perfect love to hold all others up to.

Bible scholars or not, we all know there is something out there that has to be what we fall short of.

How can we even moan and whine about those who don't love us perfectly if we have no idea of what they fall short of? We do. God's love. There can only be one example of perfect love to hold ours up to and compare it to.

It is the love of the Ultimate Parent. Not the jerky, deadbeat one that many deal with. But the standard.

We can say there is no God but our desire for perfection in our lives and loves argues that there is one.

Ultimately, I have nothing more to argue for God and His perfect love other than my sincere and yet flawed reflection of it and Him in my own life...in how I love others.

I love you. And the very best times and expressions of my love for you are only a tiny hint of God's perfect love.

The love that says I would rather die for you than not live in you.

SCARY NEWS FLASH: Jesus is God in the flesh and He died for you and rose again...and yet I'm the best most wonderful chance for you to see Him as real. Isn't it a pity?

I'll let you down. I'll say the wrong thing at the wrong time (mostly because I never stop talking do I?---will he ever shut up, you must think so often) Isn't it a shame?

I'll try too hard and fail and you will say, "If Chris can't convince me after all his years of 'God stuff' than I guess no one can."

It's a pity and shame but I will just have to say "I'm sorry...I will do my best"

And love you.

There must be a God of some kind that, by the definition of God being perfect and loving, has provided us instinctually with the knowledge of right and wrong. Only "intellectuals" have the balls to say that everyone makes their own rules...that "what's right for you might not be right for me"...sounds politically correct and all but what happens is that we find if we are honest that certain things are "true for all of us"...such as rape being wrong, or uncaring fathers and mothers, or hurting the helpless...you see, THEN we are saying that there MUST be SOME things that are always right and always wrong. In that situation we must be intellectually honest enough to see that we are all so messed up that there is no way we came up with the concept of "good vs evil"...it had to come from OUTSIDE the system we live in. A being outside of the universe and it's failings as we know them, must be that God.

Now...I believe that God showed us about His attributes and self through the Bible...and through Jesus. Look at them...Read the Gospels. Did Jesus act and speak in a way that would be consistent with what we want to believe is the best? Is God? Give Him a chance.

We’re attempting to convince the world how good Jesus is by how great we are. This is precisely how Madison Avenue sells toothpaste...

CHIRS: HEY! Here's some more from Mike Yaconelli. THIS IS FOR ALL THE PEOPLE LIKE MYSELF OUT THERE WHO NOW OR AT ONE POINT OR ANOTHER BEEN OVERWHELMED BY OUR FLAWS...for one friend in particular...

It’s not about perfection; it’s about our intimacy with God, or our connection, our relationship with God. Once we get through that, once we realize that we can be imperfect, flawed, broken; those kinds of things are the ingredients of spirituality.

We’d like to have it all neat and orderly. We want to be able to measure it and control it, but the reality is that Jesus is a mystery. The Christian faith is a mystery. The disciples spent their entire time following him going, “Uhh, what the heck are you doing? We don’t understand what you’re doing and we don’t know why you’re doing it.” And when he would explain why he was doing it, they still didn’t get it.

I am beginning to understand that faith is not the way around pain, it is the way through pain. Faith doesn’t get rid of the opposition, it invites it over for dinner. Faith doesn’t give you the winning point at the last second, it ties the game and sends you into overtime. Faith doesn’t give you the solution, it forces you to find it.

The power of the Church is not a parade of flawless people, but of a flawless Christ who embraces our flaws. The Church is not made up of the whole people, rather of the broken people who find wholeness in a Christ who was broken for us.

I want a lifetime of holy moments. Every day I want to be in dangerous proximity to Jesus. I long for a life that explodes with meaning and is filled with adventure, wonder, risk, and danger. I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous. I want to be with Jesus, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.

For the Christian, there is no distinction between the sacred and secular. Everything a Christian does is an expression of his faith. He does not make choices based on the religious significance of the alternative. As a Christian he makes the choice that is a logical extension of the values he has derived from his faith…

We’re attempting to convince the world how good Jesus is by how great we are. This is precisely how Madison Avenue sells toothpaste, automobiles, and underwear. People don’t need any more images of success, wealth, and power; they’re surrounded already. What they need are their sins forgiven. What they need is healing. What they need is love.

The tragedy of modern faith is that we no longer are capable of being terrified. We aren’t afraid of God, we aren’t afraid of Jesus, we aren’t afraid of the Holy Spirit. As a result, we have ended up with a need-centered gospel that attracts thousands…but transforms no one.

Some great thoughts from Yak

Chris here: Mike Yaconelli was an amazing man. He "ungrew" a church from 100 people down to 30...by being who God made him to be. I guarantee those 30 people were more real and full of God's grace because Mike always left people with permission to be messy as well as loved. Most of us just focus on our messiness. Mike was my kind of guy.

Here (and in the few days ahead) I will be sharing some of his great perspective on life and the God who gave it to us!

The grace of God is dangerous. It's lavish, excessive, outrageous and scandalous. God's grace is ridiculously inclusive. He loves fallen pastors, hookers, cheaters, drug addicts, porn watchers...apparently He doesn't care He loves! He is not very careful about the people He calls His friends. Or who He calls His church. How cool is that?

I go into churches and everyone seems to feel so good about themselves.

Everyone calls themselves a Christian nowadays. How dare we call ourselves Christians? It's only for Jesus to decide whether we are Christian or not. I don't think He's made a decision in my case, and I'm afraid that when He does I am going to be sent straight to hell. I don't feel I can call myself a Christian. I can't be satisfied with myself. We all seem to be pretty contented with ourselves in church and that makes me sick. I think all this contentment makes Jesus nervous.

My life is a mess. After forty-five years of trying to follow Jesus, I keep losing him in the crowded busyness of my life. I know Jesus is there, somewhere, but it's difficult to make him out in the haze of everyday life. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a godly person. Yet when I look at the yesterdays of my life, what I see, mostly, is a broken, irregular path littered with mistakes and failure. I have had temporary successes and isolated moments of closeness to God, but I long for the continuing presence of Jesus. Most of the moments of my life seem hopelessly tangled in a web of obligations and distractions. I want to be a good person. I don't want to fail. I want to learn from my mistakes, rid myself of distractions, and run into the arms of Jesus. Most of the time, however, I feel like I am running away from Jesus into the arms of my own clutteredness.

I want desperately to know God better. I want to be consistent. Right now the only consistency in my life is my inconsistency. Who I want to be and who I am are not very close together. I am not doing well at the living-a-consistent-life thing.

I don't want to be St. John of the Cross or Billy Graham. I just want to be remembered as a person who loved God, who served others more than he served himself, who was trying to grow in maturity and stability. I want to have more victories than defeats, yet here I am, almost sixty, and I fail on a regular basis. If I were to die today, I would be nervous about what people would say at my funeral. I would be happy if they said things like "He was a nice guy" or "He was occasionally decent" or "Mike wasn't as bad as a lot of people." Unfortunately, eulogies are delivered by people who know the deceased. I know what the consensus would be. "Mike was a mess."

When I was younger, I believed my inconsistency was due to my youth. I believed that age would teach me all I needed to know and that when I was older I would have learned the lessons of life and discovered the secrets of true spirituality. I am older, a lot older, and the secrets are still secret from me.

I often dream that I am tagging along behind Jesus, longing for him to choose me as one of his disciples. Without warning, he turns around, looks straight into my eyes, and says, "Follow me!" My heart races, and I begin to run toward him when he interrupts with, "Oh, not you; the guy behind you. Sorry."

I have been trying to follow Christ most of my life, and the best I can do is a stumbling, bumbling, clumsy kind of following. I wake up most days with the humiliating awareness that I have no clue where Jesus is. Even though I am a minister, even though I think about Jesus every day, my following is . . . uh . . . meandering.

So I've decided to write a book about the spiritual life. I know what you're thinking. Based on what I've just said about my walk with God, having me write about spirituality is like having Bozo the Clown explain the meaning of the universe, like playing Handel's Messiah on the kazoo. How can someone whose life is obviously unspiritual presume to talk about holiness? It makes no sense. Unless. Unless! Unless spirituality, as most of us understand it, is not spirituality at all. Sadly, spiritual is most commonly used by Christians to describe people who pray all day long, read their Bibles constantly, never get angry or rattled, possess special powers, and have the inside track to God. Spirituality, for most, has an otherworldly ring to it, calling to mind eccentric "saints" who have forsaken the world, taken vows of poverty, and isolated themselves in cloisters.

Nothing wrong with the spirituality of monks. Monks certainly experience a kind of spirituality, a way of seeking and knowing God, but what about the rest of us? What about those of us who live in the city, have a wife or husband, three children, two cats, and a washing machine that has stopped working?

What about those of us who are single, work sixty to seventy hours a week, have parents who wonder why we're not married, and have friends who make much more money than we do? What about those of us who are divorced, still trying to heal from the scars of rejection, trying to cope with the single-parenting of children who don't understand why this has happened to them?

Is there a spirituality for the rest of us who are not secluded in a monastery, who don't have it all together and probably never will?

Chris here again: Mike had an annoying habit of saying things that make us uncomfortable...in the days to come you will see that God is real an d His real-ness is attested to by the real way we can't seem to believe He could love us or even that he is...well...just that His IS. Don't read my blog anymore if you have answers to the questions being raised...you should just skip ahead to the front of the THEOLOGY LINE and collect your prize while the 99.999% that are left behind struggle with the gap that is between who we are and who we wish we could be.

The attack of the killer "Journey" songs

Well there i was...having a great time.

We all are laughing and singing and someone grabs the karaoke mic and begins to belt out "Don't Stop Believin'" It is, like, the 387,416th time in a week that I have heard a Journey song....I had gone years happily avoiding Steve Perry and friends' powerfully simple lyrics, thunder-ballad anthems, and bar-band arrangements.

Honestly, perhaps that was their appeal as a band in my youth...Journey had a way, from the start, of sounding like an only slightly better-than-average Journey cover band. Which is a little like when Charlie Chaplin came in 5th in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest at the height of his world-wide popularity.

Anyway...I thought, since I can't seem to get away from these songs (they attack me in my car, in the grocery store, on the toilet--don't ask.) and since I have yet to hear if I have been granted a restraining order against "STONE IN LOVE," I thought I would take a moment to look at some of the classic Journey tunes.

"DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'": Ok...It's a song about "Streetlight people" ....not to be confused with "street people" or "people of low body weight"...Streetlight people by the way, often become "zombie, brain-eating-type people" in some of your better movies. Either that or they become something even more nebulous in meaning...."Community Organizers."

There's one Streetlight Person (SP) who takes a train and is clearly not concerned about the destination of said transport....Now, I've been DISTRACTED sometimes...even wanting to just Esc4p3 (sorry...had to!) from life but, don't you think that when SP got to, say, Boise and they got on the train in Vermont, that they might panic a little? no? Probably not...because they were listening to "I'LL BE ALL RIGHT WITHOUT YOU"...."YOU" being all their earthly possessions.

My favorite lyrics come at the end..."Oh the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on..." So, we now know that the singer is a dad and has been tricked into seeing "Diary of a Wimpy Kid!"...which explains the title of another Journey hit "Who's Crying Now?" ...well duh....Dad is. Buck up, Dad...at least I won't be commenting on "Oh! Sherrie!" and make THAT nugget of classic Americana stuck in your head all day tomorrow....ooops!

Next up: "LOVIN' (They like those words with the apostrophe at the end don't they? ...or they hate the letter "G" ...hey Journey! Don't be hatin' everythin' ...that's not goin' to help anythin'!) TOUCHIN' SQUEEZIN'"

Little-known fact: Steve Perry wrote this after a particularly rough night involving intestinal distress and 2 bags of White Castles. Thus, "it's tearin' me apart..." repeated throughout the song. Another note of interest? The famous "na na na na na "....(times 270) lines at the very end not only broke copyright laws set in place years earlier by "Hey Jude," but the song also paid for Paul McCartney's divorce from Heather Mills and bought her a prosthetic leg made totally out of Neal Schon's melted down platinum record displays. I'm just "kiddin'!"

Let's take a quick and fairly painless look at "LIGHTS"

About a guy that wants to get back to his favorite city by the bay. He seems to miss his girl too....(I'll give him the benefit of the doubt there even though it's set in a city by the bay)....overpowered by raw romantic waves of emotion, he says what any of us would say:

It's sad, oh there's been mornings

out on the road without you
Without your charms
Oh ooh oh oh, my my my my my
Oh, oh, oh oh

Well..what any of us would say who had recently had their hippocampus speared by Steve Perry's nose.

By the way, ladies...the appropriate romantic response to the above poetry is of course, "na na na na na na...na na na naaaaaa na! na na na na na na na na naaaaaa na naaaah!"

Probably better off to "BE GOOD TO YOURSELF" and go your "SEPERATE WAYS."

Ok...all that said, I guess I must come clean. I like Journey. There! I mean, it could be worse....they could be fronted by Celine Dion!