I am going to be making some changes to my blogs.
1. Soon, all of my other blogs (those on typepad, anyway) will be phased out and I will no longer pay for blogging.
2. I will launch a new blog collapsin the stepfamilies, parenting and 40 days of fat stuff into one blog.
3. This blog will reamin the same in content and attitude.
4. The Flaming Pine Youth Camp Blog will remain the same.
5. Although this blog wil remain the same in content and attitude, I am thinking about changing the name. Home Front sounds kind of war-like to me. So here is the place where I need your help.
A) Should I change the name of this blog?
B) If the name is changed, what do you think about "Straying With The Truth"
C) If you can think of a better name, then please post your ideas in the comments section.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
I'm gonna quash that subpoena right out of my hair
I received a subpoena this week.
"You are commanded to appear..."
These are not the words you want to read on a document with your name on it. When you receive subpoena, you must obey the command or risk being held in contempt of court, which could mean going to the slammer.
As a therapist, I get this kind of thing every now and again. I hate it because usually I feel like I am being used as some kind of useful tool for someone's manipulation of another.
Ah, but as a therapist I have a special relationship with my clients. My clients have what is called privilege. Unless my client allows me to talk about our sessions and what is in the file, I am bound not to talk.
So, I am caught between violating my client's privilege and being held in contempt. Nice place to reside, eh?
Then there is little thing called a quash. When a subpoena is not delivered ina timely manner, which this one was not, I can have my attorney (always ahve an attorney on your side) motion to quash. Bascially to me that means I get out of it.
A judge can overrule a motion to quash, but likely will not. If I do go to court, I will claim privilege, which hack off the oppsing attorney, but I won't care. Then the judge will decide whether or not I need to talk. If the judge compels me, than I talk - but under the cover of judicial order to break that privilege.
I love our legal system.
"You are commanded to appear..."
These are not the words you want to read on a document with your name on it. When you receive subpoena, you must obey the command or risk being held in contempt of court, which could mean going to the slammer.
As a therapist, I get this kind of thing every now and again. I hate it because usually I feel like I am being used as some kind of useful tool for someone's manipulation of another.
Ah, but as a therapist I have a special relationship with my clients. My clients have what is called privilege. Unless my client allows me to talk about our sessions and what is in the file, I am bound not to talk.
So, I am caught between violating my client's privilege and being held in contempt. Nice place to reside, eh?
Then there is little thing called a quash. When a subpoena is not delivered ina timely manner, which this one was not, I can have my attorney (always ahve an attorney on your side) motion to quash. Bascially to me that means I get out of it.
A judge can overrule a motion to quash, but likely will not. If I do go to court, I will claim privilege, which hack off the oppsing attorney, but I won't care. Then the judge will decide whether or not I need to talk. If the judge compels me, than I talk - but under the cover of judicial order to break that privilege.
I love our legal system.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Unity 2.0 - Political
"How can you call yourself a Christian if you are a Democrat?"
Ever heard that one before?
"Republicans are heartless, compassionless, and greedy."
Ever heard anything like that?
OK, my church background left me one political option - Republican. Since all Democrats wanted to kill babies, promote sexual promiscuity, and make everyone gay, what choice did I have? Since Christians and Republicans are all about family values, what else is there to discuss?
It was an open and shut case.
No longer. I still vote Republican (for the most part), but I do so holding my nose rather than walking with a swagger. OK, I don't really know how to walk like that, but I am not proudly voting Republican either.
The problem is that being Christian and questioning anything Republican can get a guy into trouble. And depending on your context, it can get you into real trouble. For example, your very faith can be called into question for merely mentioning that gays should be heard, respected, and honored just like anyone else. Verses will be quoted. Tempers will have to be restrained.
The cop out answer to the political dilemma is to opt out of politics. Don't vote, don't make yourself aware of things that have a any political side, don't run for office. No, bad option.
At the same time it is a bad option to get too interested in politics. When politics is equated with faith, then the political idolatry has already begun. Right now it is the Republicans who are most vulnerable to political idolatry. However, in the past two years I have seen a resurgence of Democrats guilty of the same idolatry.
Case in piont: I shudder when I hear political figures telling me what God wants and what God is doing. I don't care if it is Ray Nagan or Mike Huckabee - it's scary.
Can't we just be political and not let it get confused with our faith? Jesus respected political realities, but was not carried by them. He found a way to pay the tax, but would not seek to co-opt political power for the advancement of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is not so small the one political party has a corner on it.
So let's be CHRISTIANS and then be democrat or republican
Ever heard that one before?
"Republicans are heartless, compassionless, and greedy."
Ever heard anything like that?
OK, my church background left me one political option - Republican. Since all Democrats wanted to kill babies, promote sexual promiscuity, and make everyone gay, what choice did I have? Since Christians and Republicans are all about family values, what else is there to discuss?
It was an open and shut case.
No longer. I still vote Republican (for the most part), but I do so holding my nose rather than walking with a swagger. OK, I don't really know how to walk like that, but I am not proudly voting Republican either.
The problem is that being Christian and questioning anything Republican can get a guy into trouble. And depending on your context, it can get you into real trouble. For example, your very faith can be called into question for merely mentioning that gays should be heard, respected, and honored just like anyone else. Verses will be quoted. Tempers will have to be restrained.
The cop out answer to the political dilemma is to opt out of politics. Don't vote, don't make yourself aware of things that have a any political side, don't run for office. No, bad option.
At the same time it is a bad option to get too interested in politics. When politics is equated with faith, then the political idolatry has already begun. Right now it is the Republicans who are most vulnerable to political idolatry. However, in the past two years I have seen a resurgence of Democrats guilty of the same idolatry.
Case in piont: I shudder when I hear political figures telling me what God wants and what God is doing. I don't care if it is Ray Nagan or Mike Huckabee - it's scary.
Can't we just be political and not let it get confused with our faith? Jesus respected political realities, but was not carried by them. He found a way to pay the tax, but would not seek to co-opt political power for the advancement of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is not so small the one political party has a corner on it.
So let's be CHRISTIANS and then be democrat or republican
Monday, February 06, 2006
Sexy Super Bowl Commercials
Jessica Simpson can knock down a teenage boy with a pizza bit (pizza bit not really needed) and the Go Daddy Girl can cause an older man inhale deeply into his oxygen mask. The metal naked woman from mud flaps has a thing for Yosemite Sam and the not so sexy Burger King food item ladies think the plastic Burger King is creepy (finally, Burger King admits this guy is creepy). And the most sexy commercial had to be the ads for Dancing With the Stars.
I watched these with my 7 year old daughter (my son was running around like a nut and missed them) - good.
We had decided at the beginning of the game to rate a thumbs up or thumbs down or a thumb to the side for all commercials. We gave all the sexy commercials a thumbs down. It was a little awkward to watch these sexy commercials at all, let alone with my daughter. In the past I have looked away and covered my own eyes. However, I decided differently this year. My daughter get her first (official) lesson in objectification.
I could have given her a lesson on the abuse of sexual power (women over men OR men over women), but I decided to stick with the topic of making objects of women. I told her that these commercials did not treat women like women, but like objects just to sell things. She didn't get it, really, and I didn't expect her to. But the seed of the message is planted, a message saying that there is more to being a female than looking good. In fact, true beauty goes deeper than the skin.
I want my little girl to grow up beautiful into the depths of her heart. I do not want her to settle for the excessively expensive, dangerous, and fleeting surface kind of beauty paraded all over TV and everywhere else. I want her to be confident in her vlaue and to know that her beauty is measured in her compassion, love, genuineness, courage, faith, and gentleness as opposed to breast size.
I watched these with my 7 year old daughter (my son was running around like a nut and missed them) - good.
We had decided at the beginning of the game to rate a thumbs up or thumbs down or a thumb to the side for all commercials. We gave all the sexy commercials a thumbs down. It was a little awkward to watch these sexy commercials at all, let alone with my daughter. In the past I have looked away and covered my own eyes. However, I decided differently this year. My daughter get her first (official) lesson in objectification.
I could have given her a lesson on the abuse of sexual power (women over men OR men over women), but I decided to stick with the topic of making objects of women. I told her that these commercials did not treat women like women, but like objects just to sell things. She didn't get it, really, and I didn't expect her to. But the seed of the message is planted, a message saying that there is more to being a female than looking good. In fact, true beauty goes deeper than the skin.
I want my little girl to grow up beautiful into the depths of her heart. I do not want her to settle for the excessively expensive, dangerous, and fleeting surface kind of beauty paraded all over TV and everywhere else. I want her to be confident in her vlaue and to know that her beauty is measured in her compassion, love, genuineness, courage, faith, and gentleness as opposed to breast size.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Balanced
I asked my 7 year old daughter how I was doing as a father. She said, "dad, you're balance. You are part crazy and part stern."
Now, I am not sure if her response means I am bi-polar or if she is, but I did like the first part, the part about balanced.
This question I asked is the question that bounces around in every parent's head. It should anyway. Well, not from a self-demeaning, insecure, spineless, wussy-boy point of view, but rather from a self-aware, confident, I-can-take-critique, I am always ready to improve point of view.
Not that I enter into that question from a healthy perspective all the time, but I want to. I want to be a good dad, and yet I know that I am. I am good and getting better (with some slowly shrinking blindspots). At the same time, I know that I must be constantly ready to change...change at the speed my kids are. And that is what makes parenting so hard.
There is a point in everyone's life when it becomes easy to "arrive." When we arrive we stop. When we stop we are no longer learning. No longer learning means the world leaves us behind. And when the world leaves us behind we become increasingly different by staying the same; increasingly irrelevant by holding on to outdated relevance.
As a parent I cannot afford the luxury arrival provides. I see this dynamic in the my relationship with my mother (are you reading, mom?). She does not have the luxury of settling into one fixed point with me. Darned blast if I don't keep moving, changing, growing etc. But this is what I really like about my mother (still reading, mom?) she resists the seduction of arrival. Although she is black and white on so many things, because she loves me that much, she is willing not to shut the door on this or that. In short, she continues to grow.
I need my mother to do this for two reasons.
1. Our relationship remains dynamic and meaningful. Agreement is not our cause for relationship, it is love.
2. I am going to be in my mother's place one day with my own children. How she deals with me matters significantly to how I will deal with my children. It's not deterministic, but simply just the most familiar.
So far, I'm "balanced." Well, we'll see how balanced I am the first time I take away the car keys...but that's 9 years away - just around the corner.
Now, I am not sure if her response means I am bi-polar or if she is, but I did like the first part, the part about balanced.
This question I asked is the question that bounces around in every parent's head. It should anyway. Well, not from a self-demeaning, insecure, spineless, wussy-boy point of view, but rather from a self-aware, confident, I-can-take-critique, I am always ready to improve point of view.
Not that I enter into that question from a healthy perspective all the time, but I want to. I want to be a good dad, and yet I know that I am. I am good and getting better (with some slowly shrinking blindspots). At the same time, I know that I must be constantly ready to change...change at the speed my kids are. And that is what makes parenting so hard.
There is a point in everyone's life when it becomes easy to "arrive." When we arrive we stop. When we stop we are no longer learning. No longer learning means the world leaves us behind. And when the world leaves us behind we become increasingly different by staying the same; increasingly irrelevant by holding on to outdated relevance.
As a parent I cannot afford the luxury arrival provides. I see this dynamic in the my relationship with my mother (are you reading, mom?). She does not have the luxury of settling into one fixed point with me. Darned blast if I don't keep moving, changing, growing etc. But this is what I really like about my mother (still reading, mom?) she resists the seduction of arrival. Although she is black and white on so many things, because she loves me that much, she is willing not to shut the door on this or that. In short, she continues to grow.
I need my mother to do this for two reasons.
1. Our relationship remains dynamic and meaningful. Agreement is not our cause for relationship, it is love.
2. I am going to be in my mother's place one day with my own children. How she deals with me matters significantly to how I will deal with my children. It's not deterministic, but simply just the most familiar.
So far, I'm "balanced." Well, we'll see how balanced I am the first time I take away the car keys...but that's 9 years away - just around the corner.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Postmodern Marriage
Folks, like it or not, with every day that passes we are entering a little bit further into a postmodern America. When I say postmodern I mean a pluralistic, anti-institutional, ironic, paradoxical, truth is negotiable and personalized, "what’s all the fighting about?" philosophy.
It is an invisible philosophical foundation that guides people’s assumptions. It is a reaction to the monolithic, institution-trusting, straight forward, logical, truth is absolute and generalized, "the man with the biggest guns wins" philosophy of modernism, which has been the ruling philosophy since Martin Luther did that little protest five centuries ago.
One could say that each philosophical foundation has its cracks (and crackpots), but it is difficult to deny that postmodernism is rushing in like dawn’s sunlight floods the Delta plain. Since it is here to stay for a few hundred years (until post-postmodernism takes over), we might as well take a look at what it means for marriage. Mostly, I want to focus on younger marriages. If you’ve been married fifty years, this article might just make you shake your head and say, "kids these days…"
Let’s explore a couple mantras from this emerging postmodern culture we cannot avoid living in and discuss how these impact younger marriages.
The first mantra is: "I don’t want to impose." This mantra flows from the "my truth is mine and your truth is yours" ethic that threads throughout postmodernity. Or, as Tom Cruise said in Far and Away, "I prefer to keep myself to myself." Each person’s domain is self-contained. One person’s right to assert truth ends at his or her own skin.
The good news for marriage is that there is a new and refreshing sense of respect that comes with the postmodern ethic. Postmoderns do not like conflict at all – it’s bad, maybe even evil. To impose is to conflict and to conflict is to fail. It is not that they too easily agree, but rather that they have an excessively high tolerance for disagreement. To a modern person, disagreement is a problem that requires a conflict in order to fix it. To a postmodern person, disagreement indicates a difference, but does not necessitate any remediation. Yes, this is good news.
However, the bad news for marriage is that two people living within their own worlds can get really lonely, even lying next to each other in bed. What was meant to be respect for one another results in never sharing their lives with each other, never hammering out intimate realities, never making up after the fight – because there are no fights. Some of the most intimate times a couple can have occur during conflict. Sometimes conflict is the only way you know that you matter to each other.
The second mantra is: "I can do whatever I want to." This one is the flip side of the coin. If the first one says, "I don’t want to impose," this one says, "…and you’d better not impose upon me." Now, before you say, "aha! Selfish," there is a good side to this postmodern mantra.
The good news is that oppressed people are empowered by this ethic and freed to make their way. Women, minorities, and other traditionally oppressed people groups have hit gold with this ethic. Freed to live the kind of life they were meant to, they enjoy a more level playing field. This helps in marriage because women are freer to make a wider variety of choices about their lives, but so are men. The gender straightjackets are loosened up.
However, the bad news is that selfishness can and does run amuck. A sense of entitlement can saturate a person and lead that person right to divorce court. I can go out with my friends, stay out late, never call you, flirt with other people, play my video games, shop ‘til I drop, buy that boat and do whatever I want to. Don’t tell me what I can’t do. In short, there is huge temptation for people to get married, but continue to live single.
As we move into this new and unusual postmodern world, marriages are going through a tough transition. Deep character, courageous intimacy, and patient conflict will help to hedge against the challenges that postmodernism presents.
It is an invisible philosophical foundation that guides people’s assumptions. It is a reaction to the monolithic, institution-trusting, straight forward, logical, truth is absolute and generalized, "the man with the biggest guns wins" philosophy of modernism, which has been the ruling philosophy since Martin Luther did that little protest five centuries ago.
One could say that each philosophical foundation has its cracks (and crackpots), but it is difficult to deny that postmodernism is rushing in like dawn’s sunlight floods the Delta plain. Since it is here to stay for a few hundred years (until post-postmodernism takes over), we might as well take a look at what it means for marriage. Mostly, I want to focus on younger marriages. If you’ve been married fifty years, this article might just make you shake your head and say, "kids these days…"
Let’s explore a couple mantras from this emerging postmodern culture we cannot avoid living in and discuss how these impact younger marriages.
The first mantra is: "I don’t want to impose." This mantra flows from the "my truth is mine and your truth is yours" ethic that threads throughout postmodernity. Or, as Tom Cruise said in Far and Away, "I prefer to keep myself to myself." Each person’s domain is self-contained. One person’s right to assert truth ends at his or her own skin.
The good news for marriage is that there is a new and refreshing sense of respect that comes with the postmodern ethic. Postmoderns do not like conflict at all – it’s bad, maybe even evil. To impose is to conflict and to conflict is to fail. It is not that they too easily agree, but rather that they have an excessively high tolerance for disagreement. To a modern person, disagreement is a problem that requires a conflict in order to fix it. To a postmodern person, disagreement indicates a difference, but does not necessitate any remediation. Yes, this is good news.
However, the bad news for marriage is that two people living within their own worlds can get really lonely, even lying next to each other in bed. What was meant to be respect for one another results in never sharing their lives with each other, never hammering out intimate realities, never making up after the fight – because there are no fights. Some of the most intimate times a couple can have occur during conflict. Sometimes conflict is the only way you know that you matter to each other.
The second mantra is: "I can do whatever I want to." This one is the flip side of the coin. If the first one says, "I don’t want to impose," this one says, "…and you’d better not impose upon me." Now, before you say, "aha! Selfish," there is a good side to this postmodern mantra.
The good news is that oppressed people are empowered by this ethic and freed to make their way. Women, minorities, and other traditionally oppressed people groups have hit gold with this ethic. Freed to live the kind of life they were meant to, they enjoy a more level playing field. This helps in marriage because women are freer to make a wider variety of choices about their lives, but so are men. The gender straightjackets are loosened up.
However, the bad news is that selfishness can and does run amuck. A sense of entitlement can saturate a person and lead that person right to divorce court. I can go out with my friends, stay out late, never call you, flirt with other people, play my video games, shop ‘til I drop, buy that boat and do whatever I want to. Don’t tell me what I can’t do. In short, there is huge temptation for people to get married, but continue to live single.
As we move into this new and unusual postmodern world, marriages are going through a tough transition. Deep character, courageous intimacy, and patient conflict will help to hedge against the challenges that postmodernism presents.
Post-Restoration Radio
Look what Adam Ellis and Phil Wilson are doing. The first post-restoration podacst.
If you are a Church of Christ person, then this one is for you.
If you are a Church of Christ person, then this one is for you.
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