Suffering and Choosing

Last Thursday was Lynne's last chemotherapy session, the final act of a six month poison play bent on destroying anarchistic, undisciplined cells. The nurses came in with balloons and Martinelli's and celebrated this milestone with her. The SCCA is all class, but I still say they should have Brie and Champagne at the end of it all.

As I've watched Lynne deal with her treatments, I have tended to see only the brightness of her courage, resolve, and discipline. People whose friendship we don't deserve always ask me, "How's Lynne?" and I always reply, "What a warrior she is." And yet, the real truth is she has been suffering. All of this is suffering, and there will be more ahead in the form of surgery and maybe more down the road we don't yet know. Being afflicted is suffering, and being asked to make hard choices about your body is suffering, and being asked to acutely consider the length of your days is suffering. It's terrible, but she won't say that.

I think as disciples we know the way of character in Romans 5 through and through. We are, hopefully from the time of baptism, fairly in tune with the message of Jesus' suffering and familiar with the history of the early church's sufferings. We see it between the lines in Hebrews, Peter, and Revelation. Sometimes, caught up in the egotism of prominent and self-important self-sacrifice, we even talk as though suffering, or even martyrdom are things to welcome.

I'm not knocking the embracing of suffering. We must, in order to follow Jesus. But it's one thing to imagine one's suffering from afar and say, "yes, I think I can," and another to have it surprise you, mug you, hijack you. When we can choose to suffer, we feel the humility and the nobility. But when suffering chooses us unexpectedly, the test is daunting and heart-breaking.

Setting aside speculations on the meaning of "omniscience," for the moment, is it possible that God too must sometimes face sufferings He did not know were really coming? It makes me feel better to think so.

The Best Albums?

Among my faves:

Chicago II (eponymous)
Madman Across the Water (Elton John)
Transit (Windham Hill, Ira Stein, Russell Walder)
December (George Winston)
By Heart (Jim Brickman)
Late for the Sky (Jackson Brown)
Revolver (Beatles)
Watermark (Enya)
The Stranger (Billy Joel)
Born to Run (Boss)

And I love Jacky Cheung and Wong Fei in HK

Back in School

Started my first master's program class at Seattle Pacific University last night, so I can now sympathize with those MKs who have done this while working. It's a 3 year program, featuring classes on Monday and Wed evenings and also Wed afternoon. The degree I'm studying for is the Masters in Psychology for Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT). There are about 30 people in the program and, sadly, I'm much closer to the age of the faculty than the other students. This must be confusing for both sides. Faculty: "Why is this geezer doing this? Where was he in the 80's?" Students: "Why is this geezer doing this? Where was he in the 60's?"

I hope to stand out for something other than my age...stay tuned.

War and the Flying Nun

Heard that Norma Rae had an Emmy fit last night, calling into question the wisdom of testosterone. I didn't see the show, but I guess she felt like war is basically a guy thing and that if the world were run by Moms we wouldn't be in Iraq, Flanders or anywhere else in barbarian space and time.

I am inclined to agree, but with two manly caveats. First, it's true that all wars we know of are started really by men, and almost all jails are full of men, not women, though some women do indeed go to jail. Men, it seems, like to fight. But if "women ran the world," would it really be, then, a bed of roses, a benign utopia? Something about the "all" in Romans 3:23 tells me that women would find their own way, a different way, to ruin the world. Readers may speculate how.

Second, with men out of the way, women might rise to the dark occasion and start more wars than we think. After all, Sally herself went from virtuous nun to profane judge without any men prodding her. You might even say she flew off the handle.

Hugs,

srg

Carlos Vargas et.al.....

Carlos left me an encouraging message from the Madrid church the other day, but I don't have a way to contact him.

Carlos, (and anyone else that wants to chat)--please email me at greenland1@comcast.net or in your comments leave me your own email address!

An Overdue Welcome to McCunes!

First, make sure you read Marcus' excellent post below.

How hectic are our lives? This hectic: we have consensus #1 draft picks come to Seattle this fall to work with the Eastside, but we (ahem, me) are too busy running in 10 different mental directions to actually acknowledge this amazing event.

And it is amazing. Mark and Annie have a well-deserved spiritual reputation for vision, hard work, friendship-building, evangelism, counseling, and fun--yes, that's right, fun. They have built ministries that have stood the test of time in Colorado, in Boise, in North Seattle, and in Spokane, Seattle's first church planting. We are lucky and blessed to have them here, and this will rapidly become apparent especially over on the Eastside. I simply cannot overstate what a GREAT blessing it is to serve with them on the full-time ministry staff and on behalf of the whole church I want to shout out a BIG WELCOME MARK and ANNIE!

Am I Being A Spiritual Fool?

By Marcus Wallace

Do you want to know why I love the Bible so much? Well there are many reasons, but huge reason is that no matter how many times I have read a particular scripture, I can still get convicted by it as if I was reading it for the very first time. For example, at last week’s All Teen Back-to-School devotional, my friend, Ben Richey read a familiar scripture from Luke 12 during his lesson to the students.

The Parable of the Rich Fool
Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." But God said to him, "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?" This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God." (Luke 12:13-21)

Even though I have read this passage before and have even used it in lessons that I have done, I was still convicted with the truth of the verse. Ben challenged all of us in the room that in the grand scheme of things, the only thing that matters in our lives is our personal relationship with God.

This point was so convicting for me because after recently getting married, I have found myself thinking about many things that I would like to have for myself, my wife, and Lord-willing my future family. I have often thought: “One day I would like to have a house; One day I would like to go on family vacations; One day I would like to have a Big Screen T.V. to watch Sports on (I know that it sounds shallow, but I love Sports! Go UW Huskies!); etc.” Even though these things are not bad or sinful in themselves, if I am not careful, it is easy to put more time and effort into acquiring these things than it is to strengthening my relationship with God. Why is this so important? It is because when I stand before God one day, trivial things like how much money I had while on earth or how much equity did my house accrue won’t matter for anything. The only thing that will matter, like Ben said, is how much time and effort did I spend building up a love relationship with God. In other words, if I put more stock into earthly desires and possessions than I put into my relationship with God, than I, like the rich man in the story, are being foolish! This is, was, and will always be a good reminder for me about what really matters in my life. Praise God for this most needed reminder on Saturday afternoon.

Where were you on 9-11?

I was driving my son Stephen to the school bus stop in lower Somerset @ 7am. When he left the car, I turned on sports radio and heard Mitch Levy talking about the world trade center having been hit by an airplane--I thought it was a sports radio prank at first.

Back at home, I shouted to Lynne to look at the news and I'm assuming we tuned into CNN. We were seeing a replay without really being aware of it and, not knowing that the towers were coming down or that even a second plane had hit, felt the incredulous shock of seeing the second tower struck and the awful instantaneous realization that this was no accident.

Six years later, despite the din of military and political debate regarding our subsequent retaliation, one undeniable reality looms large: we live in a world in which Satan is real and evil--not just sin, but deliberate evil-- is at work. Hearts can be darkened, consumed with hatred and resentment, and go places none of us want to countenance.

And so, where are you on 9-11? Wanting comfort and ease, do we see the world, including our Seattle cocoon, through lenses of "peace, peace, where there is no peace," or do we daily don the full armor of God, humbled by our own sin, yet ready to take our stand against evil, calling it by its name, and fighting with spiritual weapons to help cleanse the souls of men? Say a prayer today for the victims of 9-11, and say a prayer for yourself--a prayer of rededication to the fight that must precede eternal peace.

City Campus/Mingles Midweek

Pictures from our first midweek in the new building:

Singles and campus wait in excited expectation. People arrived early and were ready to go for our first midweek atop Queen Anne. The city young marrieds were also there and ready to get inside!



The singing was inspiring and spirit-filled. The acoustics were an obvious improvement over past building (naval reserve... need I say more?), and Sunday mornings with Darin Ford, Danny Figgins and co. will surely be amazing. Bernie is going to have us crying often! This building even made the campus sound good!!!



Jay holding the keys to the kingdom... we could all be in trouble!