I Used to Be Smart.

Something that I’m not proud to admit happened today.

If you live anywhere close to Kentucky, you’ll be aware that it is one of the most beautiful days of the year.  I came out of church today, got in my car, and left the parking lot.  I was keeping one eye on the road (because, of course, I drive better with one eye than most people do with two.  Of course.) and looking up at the sky with my other eye.  On the radio, I was listenining to Joker Phillips, UK football’s offensive coordiantor (no, he didn’t offend me, funny guy) talk about next season.  He was discussing things like personnel, and what UK had to do to be successful.  In the middle of all that, something strange happened.  I got this vision of Commonwealth Stadium (I blame the sky for this), and I could hear all of the noise.  I could see the blue uniforms and the sun bouncing off the helmets.  I could see, as clear as anything, a running back diving over the pile at the goal line for a much-needed touchdown.

That’s when it happened.

I tried to hold it back, but I just couldn’t.  Despite my best efforts, I gave in.

I got excited.

It happens every year, like salmon and swallows — I get excited about UK football.  All winter and into the spring I am rational.  I can look at the thing with a sense of objectivity and see it’s going to be another year below the line of mediocrity.  When it’s cold outside, it’s so much easier to see.

But something always happens.  It’s always close to this time, almost August, when it happens again.  I don’t know what triggers it, but it always happens, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

So there it is.  Make fun of me if you must, but I just can’t help it.

There is something I don’t think we understand in America.  Fresh off the American Independance Day, I’ve heard more than my fair share of rhetoric about freedom lately.  Embroiled in this “War on Terrorism,” Americans have had to constantly ask new question about what it means to be free.  In the midst of all that, it seems like this consciouness about freedom has developed in America.  This belief has developed that freedom is the product of governments.  The prevailing notion is that we are only free because the government has been structured in a way that allows us to be free.  We are free, we believe, because we are Americans, and we believe that freedom cannot be duplicated under any circumstances other than the specific government that we have devised.

We are mistaken if we believe that freedom is the product of any government instituion.  We are mistaken if we believe that any political leader has the ability to provide or deprive us freedom.  We are mistaken if we believe that any government construct is the source or the ends of our freedom.

Don’t hear me wrongly.  I enjoy the specific kinds of freedoms that America provides me.  My life is made much more convenient and comfortable by those freedoms.  I do not wish to lose any of those freedoms.  However, I do have to wonder — if those freedoms have been obtained by means that violate the principles of my faith, should I find those freedoms worth keeping?  (That’s a tough question, but think about it.)

Being born in America may have granted me many freedoms, but it has not made me Free.  There is an absolute difference between having freedoms and being made Free.

Jesus and Paul both say much about freedom.  Two men, born under the context of Roman oppression are utterly convinced that they are free, and that we all can be made free, and none of their efforts had to do with passing laws through the Roman Senate to ensure individuals freedoms.  They found that their freedom, our freedom, was rooted in something else.  Christ says that it is Truth, the Truth that he embodies that sets us free, and if he has made us free (and he has), then will be truly Free.  Paul says that we have been freed from sin and the destructive grip that has over the world, we have been freed to stem the tide of corruption and evil that exists in our own hearts and in the world at large.  We are free to see how sin is doing those things and to fight against its efforts.

That is who we are.  That we have been granted freedoms by some transitory governmental body means nothing.  It is hard to see that with our limited perspectives, but it is true.  The life to which Christ calls us is a life that looks far past the limited perspective and seeks to look at life through broader lenses, lenses that place everything that we do in the context Christ’s coming kingdom.  This is not all that we have, and we cannot live like this is all we have.  We must realize that we more than the sum of the borders in which we are born (whatever those borders are) and that our allegiances lie to something so much grander than flags and leaders.

Our desire (my desire) is to hold fast to this life of ease and comfort.  Our desire to hold fast to that which makes us feel good about ourselves.  We are creatures who desire to find habit and stray from struggle.  Because of that, it makes us difficult to ask the hard questions about the system that provides those things to us.  It makes us difficult to ask if we have been living in the midst of something that violates all of the principles for which we have said we stand.  We are (I am) scared to death to suffer for the sake of the gospel, we are (I am) scared to death to give up the comfort that I so enjoy for the sake of something so much bigger.  We are scared to death of trading our perspective and giving up what is easy to see for something that is only a faint glimmer in the distance.  We are afraid of facing all of those around us who will ask us the difficult questions for which we have not discovered answers.  We are afraid of all of the problems that we know we will see but that we cannot solve.  We are afraid of failure.  We are afraid of what we may be called to endure.  We are afraid of who we may hurt, who may push us away.

It is all a terribly scary proposition, to live this life that Christ commands.  It is nothing that we can achieve over night.  We can only hope that God’s truth continues its long work on us, until we can eventually see the coming kingdom so clearly that we are no longer afraid of living under its rule.

If I sound like a broken record, I’m going to go ahead an apologize.  There are just things that I need to say out loud from time to time.  Sometimes, I have to remind myself that some of the hard things are still true.

In a sermon, I heard a preacher say that we should be pro-life and pro-war.  He said that we should be on the side of those seeking to outlaw abortion, and the side of those who believe the war in Iraq is the right thing to be doing.

He adamantly insisted that he was pro-life.  He had a terribly short-sighted version of what it means to be pro-life.

If we are actually pro-life, we are pro-EVERY life.  We are as much for the lives of unborn children as we are for the lives of grizzled old men, and for the lives of those labelled as terrorists.  We must be consistent, and we must consistently choose life.

What are we saying when we say that some lives are to be cherished and saved and that other lives are acceptable to be lost?  What are we saying when some groupings cannot be killed under any circumstances, while other are acceptable to kill as either direct casualties or as (the ever so demeaning) collateral damage?

If we are Christians, we have to believe that EVERY life is just as important as every other life.  Isn’t that what Jesus was after?  Didn’t Jesus give value to every person, regardless of their history?  He did, and we must.

If we take anything that Jesus said seriously, we must never think of lives in the context of national borders or even family bonds (that one is especially tough).  Every life that we encounter must be as important to us as our lives and the lives that we hold most dear.  That’s Jesus’ whole message, isn’t it?  Giving up ourselves for the sake of those around us is right at the center of what Jesus was doing.  We cannot deny that it is our call too!

It is difficult to tell someone that the lives of criminals are as important as the lives of their children.  It is crazy to tell someone that the lives of their enemies are as important as the lives of their countrymen.  It’s hard truth.  It takes time for it all to sink in and become real in our lives.  All we can do is pray that God’s truth keeps working in our hearts until it becomes the stuff of our lives.

I had a dream a few nights ago.

I was playing soccer for England.  I’m not sure why I was playing for England and not the USA.  However, the fact stands that I was playing for England.  It was quite a dream.

We were playing Brazil.  If you’re going to play against someone in a dream, it should definitely be Brazil, so I’d like to thank my subconcious for that.  I remember that Beckham played a long ball to me, and that I should’ve been offsides.  However, in my dream, the ref didn’t see fit call offsides, and I wasn’t about to inform him that anything was amiss.  So, I put my head down and make my run toward the goal.  If can beat the goalie, I’m free.

Here’s where the dream goes from something silly that happens to every seven year old kid to something that could only happen in my head.

Even in my dream, I was well aware that I had absolutely no clue what I was doing.  I was extremely well that I had no soccer skills.  I probably shouldn’t even be dribbling the ball as well I was dribbling it, and there was absolutely no way that I could possibly beat the Brazilian goalie.

So what happened?  The goalie got distracted by something in the stands and looked away, long enough for me to just barely punch the ball into the net.

Exactly.

Even in my dream, I don’t bend some ridiculous shot from outside of the box.  I don’t make some sick move that makes the goalie fall down and leaves me an empty net.  I don’t find some crafty or skillful way to sneak the ball into the back of the net.  Of course not.  I rely on a distracted goalie staring at something in the stands.  (I do remember celebrating all the same, however, if that makes any difference.)

I’m not Sigmund Freud, so I don’t know what that dream means.  However, it can’t be good.

Three entries in three days?  What’s gotten into me?

I was driving around town today, running errands.  I flipped through the radio stations, and I (very) accidentally landed on the Christian station.  I stopped because there was some pop-punk song playing, and, being the sucker for a catchly melody that I am, I usually like those.  I rolled my eyes and turned up my nose pretty quickly.

The singer was saying something about how if he had known that there was just one prayer to pray, and that was all he had to do, he wouldn’t waste his life doing so many other things, or something like that.  The focus of the song was that there was just this one prayer to pray, and that’s what does it for us.  The song was very much attempting to convince all of its listeners that the prayer was the end point, the prayer is the thing that “does it” for us.  (At least it sounded like that from where I was sitting.)

I couldn’t help but be struck at how…wrong I thought the song was, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought that it’s not just a problem of semantics.

I feel like I’ve done this more than once.  I feel like I’ve talked about the way that I’m convinced that faith is a journey.  I’m convinced that salvation is only the beginning, and it cannot be the end.  I feel that we cannot paint it as the end, or even think about it as the end.  We are not destined for some utilitarian pursuity of conversions and names checked off lists.  We must be bound to a style of being and doing that rests much more on the quality of lives that we lead.  Only lives of the utmost quality will have the ability to actually change lives in any sort of quantity.  It’s not about just saying a prayer, I’ve ranted a million times before.  Saying that prayer starts us on a journey.  That journey is the most difficult kind.  It starts us on a journey where we will have to choose inconvenience over convenience.  We will have to tackle tough questions instead of settling for easy answers.  We will have to leave behind comfort for the sake of hardship.  We will have to sacrifice retaliation for the sake of peace.  We have to choose justice over exploitation.  We will have to realign ourselves to a completely new set of values, a set of values that could call into question all of the things that we hold most dear.

Because of all of that, I think there is something that Christians must begin to do.  We must re-brand our faith.  (If you’re not familiar with the idea of branding, check it out.)

Some churches and groups of believers are already starting to do this.  They are using different words to refer to themselves, words like “Christ-followers” are often used in attempt to remove the baggage that comes so deeply embedded in words like “Christian.”  Some churches are using new symbols, new names.  They are changing their architecture, their meeting places, their worship styles.  All of this has the effect of shaping the Christian brand.  It influences the way people are seen, and it changes their perceptions about what Christians are.  This re-branding is important.  Christ is in no need of a PR campaign, however, we would do well to make sure we are doing as little as possible to destroy the value of that name.

The re-branding effort is much needed.  For too long, the Christian brand has been one of easy rewards, of easy salvation, of easy change.  We are reaping the consequences of that.  Since we have made faith so easy to obtain, we have robbed it of all its value.  We have robbed it of any cost, so it has become nothing worth keeping.  We’re like children with a pile of Christmas gifts.  We are clueless as to their value, so we just throw them all aside.  The re-branding of Christianity must make it clear that our faith costs something.  There was a great price to make our redemption viable, and there is a great cost if we are to be redeemed.  A decision to start along a journey of faith is not one that is easy.  It is a decision that realizes there will be great cost.  The cost should never be under-emphasized.  That following Christ will pick us up and set us in the opposite direction of the culture around us should never be underestimated.  No person should ever be told of the great rewards that Christ offers without of the great cost of seeking those rewards.  No person should know that redemption is waiting if they do not first know that the cost of that redemption may mean that their old way of living will be torn from limb to limb in a deconstruction that cannot be free of pain.  Something amazing is waiting for us, but that cannot be obtained but by a systematic destruction of what we hold most dear.  No person should ever be promised the reward without being made aware of the distinct possibility for pain.

That will not win us many fans.  While it may do nothing to increase the sustainability and viability of the brand, it will do everything to increase the integrity of the brand.  While the integrity is in jeopardy (and it most certainly is in jeopardy), the sustainability and viability find themselves in the crosshairs as well.  A renewed focus on restoring the integrity of Christianity most likely means that, by marketing standards, things must get worse before they get better.  The brand will be whittled down to something that appears anemic and weak.  However, it is becoming something that has more potential and power to change the world than any expansive, watered-down brand could ever have.

No matter how we speak, and no matter how we market ourselves to the world, there is one thing that is undeniably true.  There is no better testament to the brand of Christianity than the way we live our lives.  Nothing will speak more loudly than how we are living in the world every day.  Nothing will show more clearly what this thing we have dedicated our lives to is about than  how we are transforming Christ’s words into reality every single day.  Our lives are the only sufficient way to re-brand Christianity.  We will never change a world religion from the top down.  Our only hope is start and the bottom, and pray that our lives filter their way out and up, until we are so loud that the ugly voices that have been screaming the loudest cannot help but listen to the things we are saying.  And more than that, we must have the perseverance to continue when it seems that we are going neither outward nor upward, and when we know that our volume is still not yet sufficient to be heard in the halls of power.  We must be committed to this as much was when it’s hard as when it’s easy, and we must acknowledge that it is often hard.

However, we must never tire of the joy that we find in doing things the hard way.

I don’t know if I can actually say how summer makes me feel. I’ve tried before. It doesn’t matter how many words I waste, I can’t quite get it right. There is a quality of summer that just defies description. It can never be imparted, it can only be experienced. You have to sit outside at night when the fireflies are so thick that you wonder if you could even walk across the grass. You have to lie on your back in the gross while the stifling heat of the day transforms itself into the most perfect night. You have to find that day when it’s finally warm enough to drive with all of the windows, and then turn the music up way too loud.

I can tell you what all of those things are, but they will never, ever make sense to you until you have done them for yourself. That is summer. All of the indescribable potentiality that just drips from every single second and slides slowly by is summer. But more than anything, the power of summer is the way that it makes you feel.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but summer makes me feel whole. Even when my life is something other than what it should be, the summer has this incredible ability to make me feel like things are as they should be, and that I should never, ever attempt to trade this life I have found for anything else in the world. Summer makes it easier to be quiet. Those moments are often the best, the moments that need no words. They are enough in themselves. What I see and what I hear is enough. What I feel is too big. No words could ever possibly be appropriate for some of those times, so I just have to sit and listen to it all — whether its my friends and all of our big talk, or just the quiet of passing cars and restless crickets. Summer has a way of making its sounds enough.  I have always found that about summer.  It has a way of being enough.  Summer always comes just when I need it the most, but it always leaves just before I am ready to see it go.

I found a quote today by Albert Camus:

“Au milieu de l’hiver, j’ai découvert en moi un invincible été.”

In the middle of winter, I have discovered in me an invincible summer.

How do we become people who make our lives the stuff of summer?  How do we become people who are channelling our lives into the things that make us the happiest?  The most impassioned?  How do we, in the midst of whatever winter we may be experiencing, become people who are living lives of invincible summers?

If I were a preacher, I’d given you answers, but I’m not.  I don’t have answers, I just need to ask the questions.  If I ask the questions enough, I just might start to look for some answers.  I might start to find away to have summer take up residence in my soul.

So let’s get to work, finding our invincible summers.