My First Speech
1977 was a good year for me. Star Wars opened at big screens across the nation. I learned to read. I no longer had to take naps. Miss Jenkins was my first grade teacher (if you saw her through the eyes of a six year old boy, you’d understand). I won the Charlotte, NC, Royal Ambassadors “Pinewood Derby.”
For those of you who don’t know, the “Pinewood Derby” was an event in which its participants race small (about six inches long) cars built from blocks of wood. These cars were placed on inclined tracks and, powered only by gravity (and aided by some well placed weights) raced in head to head heats until only one remained undefeated. My car was the one. Cool huh?
But that’s not the moment I want to tell you about. This moment occurred several weeks later when I, a shy six year old boy, was asked to get up in front of my church and talk about winning the derby…
OK. I can do this. It’s Sunday night, so there aren’t that many people here. Wait, here come a few more. Why don’t they lock the doors at 6 o’clock? These people should at least have the decency to be on time. Oh, more people! Maybe I shouldn’t look around.
OK, deep breath. Time to sing. “Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall go rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.” I really don’t like that song. Maybe it’s because we sing it like the Darlings from Andy Griffith, only in the key of off. Mr. Worship Leader, I know you like singing verses 1,2 and 4, but you can throw 3 in, too, if you like. No? Oh well.
Maybe Pastor Stone’s sermon will run long tonight and he’ll forget about me. I am supposed to go on last, after all. Besides, it’s been a long day. Everybody’s tired and just wants to get home in time for “In Search Of.” That Leonard Nimoy sure is talented, but how’d they get his ears back to normal? Acts. OK, I can find Acts. New Testament. I just learned these. Let’s see…Genesis, Exodus. Wait, wrong half. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, ACTS. There it is. Oh, 6:40. Getting close. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this.
Now to Matthew? Shouldn’t we have hit that one first?
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”
Thou, thy, thee, ye, killest, stonest, gathereth? Who talks like that? Hey, I’m in church, maybe I should throw in some of those thees and thous when I give my speech. Yeah, that’s the ticket. This is going to be great! I’m going to tell everybody about how my Dad and brother and I built this great car. Or builteth this great car. I’ll regale them with tales of how I vanquished all foes who dared to come against me on the field of battle. I’ll tell them how they (or thou) were (or werst…is that a word?) a great source of inspiration as I placed the car on the track for each race; about how with each race, I became surer and surer of victory; of how I accepted the trophy with the grace and humility that would bring honor to Calvary Baptist Church. THIS IS GOING TO BE AWESOME!
What’s that Mom? Oh, he called me up? OK, here goes. Why is everything moving slowly? Why are there trails behind every person? Why does Pastor Stone sound like a broken tape recorder? Why don’t my legs work? What happened to the stage? This morning there were only six steps up. Now there are, 1, 2, 3…5643! OK, last step…shake Pastor Stone’s hand. This is good. The lights in the auditorium are still down, just like when the Pastor preaches. WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, what are they doing? It’s getting brighter. I don’t need to see these people! Hey, who let them in here? They really need to lock the doors at 6. Since when did this church seat 50,000 people?
Deep breath. Another one. One more. Whew, I’m beginning to feel light headed. I can do this.
“When I won the pinewood derby…”
OK, what do I say next? I have to pee. What’s happening? I didn’t eat anything before I came, but something’s flying around in my stomach. Is it hot in here? I told you there were too many people in here. Why is everyone staring at me? Didn’t your mothers teach you that was impolite?
“It meant so much to me…”
Nada. Let’s see…by my calculations I’ve been up here about nine hours. Don’t these people have homes? A little help here, Pastor! I’m six, remember? Come on, Mark, tales of victory on the field of battle! Vanquish, victory, trophy, grace, humility, thee, thou, builteth. SAY SOMETHING!
“Excuse me, but I’ve got something I’ve got to do.”
And that’s how it ended. Well, almost. I then ran off the stage into the arms of my mother and cried until they had to re-hydrate me with an IV drip. The pastor commented that mine was the most polite exit he had ever seen. Was this an important event in my life? Sure. I’ve never been afraid to speak in public since.
In the 1990s, Christopher Yuan was a gay man who worked hard and played harder. After an experience
with the drug Ecstasy, Yuan quickly became one of the top drug dealers in the major gay clubs of the Southeast, living the glamorous lifestyle marked by cars, clothes and the adoration of his new family in the homosexual community. As spectacular as the story of his life in the 90s is, it is not the subject of this book.
Yuan’s world eventually came crashing down. Arrested for conspiracy and intent to distribute illegal drugs and later sentenced to six years in prison, Yuan was abandoned by all but a very few of his supposed “friends”.
To add insult to injury, Yuan learned, while wearing the tell-tale orange jumpsuit of the Atlanta Detention Center, that he was HIV positive, likely the result of one of his sexual encounters of the previous several
years. As dramatic as the story of his Yuan’s fall is, it is not the subject of this book.
In recent years, Yuan, now a Christian speaker and HIV/AIDS activist, has garnered a fair amount of notoriety for his frequent speaking engagements in which he talks about HIV and issues surrounding sexuality and
Christianity. For this he has been both praised and roundly (and often angrily) criticized. Though one of this book’s thirty two chapters is entitled “Holy Sexuality” (a chapter that offers a view of sexuality that
will challenge the ingrained beliefs of many on both sides of the Christianity/homosexuality debate) neither HIV nor questions of Christian faith and sexuality are the subjects of this book.
What is Out of a Far Country about? It is a modern-day prodigal son story, about a son who rebels against his parents and effectively abandons his natural family in favor of living life on his own terms. It is about an awkward boy whose struggle to fit it and to make sense of his attractions led him on a journey into manhood
defined by rises, falls and, ultimately, redemption. It’s about a God who says to us “I created you in my image and, for that reason and that reason alone, I love you. Period.” It’s a story that demonstrates that God’s ways are not our ways and that God uses whomever He wills, however He wills and does so perfectly. Yuan’s journey from outcast kid to drug dealer to HIV statistic to Christ follower is, at bottom, simply a story of
God’s unconditional love for even “the least” of us (a category into which we all fall).
In addition, Out of a Far Country, is about a mother’s struggle. In alternating chapters running roughly chronologically with Christopher’s story, his mother, Angela, tells her own story of redemption
through the trials of a rebellious son, a lifeless marriage, and lifelong scars that haunted her inmost being. From her childhood in Shanghai and Taiwan to her life in the United States with husband, Leon, Angela describes for us her journey from atheist to Christian, from staunch anti-religionist to powerful prayer warrior, from suicidal mother to child of God. Hers is a story not only of redemption but also of the power of a praying parent who asks God not to bail her son out of whatever situation he might be in, not to allow him to remain in
a school threatening to expel him, not to spare him from prison, but to do “whatever it takes” to bring her son to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. It was a bold prayer. It was an instructive prayer. It was an effective prayer.
At bottom, Out of a Far Country is a story of hope. No matter how far from God we may think we are, God pursues us in the most unlikely ways and in the most unlikely places, in a swank Atlanta apartment, in
a prison bunk—even in a trash can. Read the book. You’ll understand.
Dropbox: Strengthening Relationships Since 2008
Ever so often, I’ll hear a news story about how increasingly mobile our society is becoming, how children grow up and leave the cities of their youth, how, under pressures of scarce employment and growing obligations,
otherwise intact families live with one parent or spouse away. This summer, we became one of those families,
however temporarily. My children and I live in North Carolina while my wife remains in Illinois, working out an employment obligation. My wife will join us, God willing, in September, so we already see a light at the end of the tunnel. Nevertheless, this experience (and one other, similar, occurrence several years ago) has given us at least some insight into what it means for loving, intact families to live apart. It is hard. Frankly, it sucks.
I am an admitted “gadget guy.” I love the newest, best technologies, not necessarily for their usefulness, but rather for their cool factor. Of course, I’m also broke, so for now I can only read about the newest gadgets and tools on the market. Despite my gadget obsession, however, I’ve never particularly held them in high regard.
Like many people my age and older, I long for a simpler time when our attentions weren’t divided between the laptop, the iPad, the Blackberry (or Android or iPhone), Twitter and Facebook. I’ve never seen technology as a savior. I still don’t, but I think my critical attitude is beginning to soften.
During the time we’ve been apart, my wife and I have used a variety of technologies to keep in touch.
Our favorite is an unnamed video chatting app developed by a rather fruity company. There is something that
is both exceedingly cool and comforting about seeing the person to whom you are talking on the small screen of your cell phone (“cell” phone? Do those still exist?). Of course, use of such a tool is intentional and planned. We use it for exactly the purpose for which it was intended. Despite having such devices at our disposal, what I really enjoy are those unexpected moments of connectedness with my wife, those times when I feel just a bit closer to her without even trying.
It was a relatively low-tech program running in the background on my desktop computer that gave me just such an experience yesterday. I was sitting at my desk when a small pop-up appeared in the lower right hand corner of my computer’s desktop. The text read something like this, “Amy Resume SRMC PICU.docx added to Dropbox.” For those of you who don’t know, Dropbox is an application that automatically syncs documents among multiple devices. You can create or edit a document on one device, save it to a Dropbox folder on that device and it will automatically save the new or edited document on all other devices on the same account. Pretty cool (note to Dropbox developers: shoot me an email and I’ll tell you where to send the check for the
endorsement). Whenever we know what a loved one who happens to be far away is doing at a specific time, we somehow feel a little closer to him or her, as if distance were no barrier to participation in that person’s life. I
saw that small balloon pop up and for just a moment I felt just a little closer to my wife. I knew that at that moment, she was editing her resume and that something she had just touched (so to speak) had made the 700 mile trip to nest on my computer. I knew what she was doing and I had a little memento of her day.
OK, OK, I know this is teetering on the nauseating and overtly geeky. To that I can only say, oh well. Whenever my family is together again maybe I can write something that isn’t a jumbled mix of sentimentality and nerdy fascination. For now, we are counting the days until my wife is reunited with us. Until then, we will hold on to and appreciate those little moments that close the 700 mile gap between us. Thank you, Dropbox, for making me feel closer to my wife.
Heirs of the Early Church
OK, so I’m doing something out of character for me. I’m posting a first draft. Actually, I need help. I’m writing a paper that explores the changes in the early church brought about by the conversion of Constantine and his ascendancy to the throne of the Roman Empire. The basic storyline is that the pre-Constantinian church was less materially motivated, more independent, and less violent than the post-Constantinian church. Yeah, I know. DUH! The paper goes into more detail arguing that a politicized Christianity looks very different from the early church. I use that idea to spring onto something of a soapbox in my conclusion. It’s not very academic sounding, so I may not keep the conclusion as written. Nevertheless, I need all my editors to read it and give me some feedback. Please. Oh, and be critical, but kind. It’s only a first draft. THANKS!
Nearly 2000 years have passed since the church entered the world of secular politics. During that time it has vacillated from complete withdrawal from secular affairs to outright theocracy and made stops at every point in between. In the modern United States, the church lives a confused existence. On the one hand, it preaches being “in” but not “of” the world, yet it flies its national banner beside the pulpit as if to equate its faith with its political allegiances. It preaches peace on Earth every December yet sees providential endorsement of every military operation undertaken by its nation. It embraces its earliest roots in defending the lives of the unborn against the spectre of abortion yet can abide seeing “a man put to death, even justly” when the outrage of the citizenry demands it. It confesses “one God the Father Almighty; Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible” yet fractures over issues of money, power, prestige, and politics.
It is a unique occurrence when something happens for the first time. “Firsts” always shape history. Yuri Gagarin showed the world that existence is not necessarily tied to this celestial ball – that there is indeed a great big universe out there. The Enola Gay’s payload showed the world that we hold the power of self-annihilation. Some firsts are good. Others are not. The church during the reign of Constantine was a first. It was the first instance in which affairs of the Christian faith and of the secular state became mutually and voluntarily intertwined. Was this first experience a good one or a bad one? If we believe that we in the United States are somehow heirs of the fourth century church, the answer could go either way. Certainly, much of our accepted doctrine owes its acceptance to the work of those resilient, pious, and faithful fathers of the early church whose work would likely not have been possible without the patronage of the state. Looking at what the Roman empire became and what the church has today become, though, one wonders if we have not lost something in the trade.
The Sometimes Silent World of Autism
Many of you know that I have a son. Perhaps fewer of you, including some who may have met him, know that he is autistic. To be sure, he is definitely on the milder side of the autism spectrum and has made tremendous progress due to very early intervention and the help of numerous family, friends, teachers and therapists. He’s actually quite interactive, will make eye contact, and on occasion will talk you into a coma — not exactly either of the Hollywood autism stereotypes; he’s neither a “Rain Man” savant nor a completely withdrawn, non-reponsive shell.
That’s the problem with stereotypes. They are, in truth, bad caricatures. Good caricatures reflect some kernel of the person they intent to portray. Bad caricatures seek solely to elicit the audience response intended by the artist at the expense of the model. It’s not my intent here to offer anyone an extensive education on autism. I thought it would be nice, though, to let you meet one autistic young woman. Her name is Sarah Stup. She is unable to speak, but she definitely has something to say. It would be wrong to say that hers is a “representative” story because, like all of us “typical” people, each person with autism is unique. I don’t want to say more. I haven’t walked the road that earns me that right. Watch the following video. I suggest you watch it when everything around you is quiet.
One Evangelical’s Response to Pat Robertson’s Remarks on Haiti
Jeff Foxworthy said that “Southerners are among the smartest people on Earth. Our problem is that we just can’t keep the most ignorant amongst us off the television.” We Christians have the same problem. There are a lot of thoughtful intelligent Christians. We just can’t keep the most ignorant amongst us off the television. Here’s an example.
An absolutely horrible earthquake rocked Haiti today. Preliminary reports indicate that the death toll may be in the hundreds of thousands. For those who don’t know, a well-known, though embarassing, voice of evangelical Christianity chimed in on the disaster. Pat Roberston explained, ”Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French … and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal…’ Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another…” The legend of which Robertson speaks dates back to the 18th century and is of very dubious origin. Even assuming its truth, however, what view of God countenances his raining disaster on hundreds of thousands of people who not only are not parties to such a “pact” but who are even unaware of such a legend? I am offended that Robertson who, in theory, flies the same religious banner I do would hide his apparent personal disdain for those not like him behind the faith that I so cherish. It’s ignorant, it’s offensive and it’s an affront to everything that Christ came to do.
Earlier in the day, I read a thread in which someone compared Robertson with Fred Phelps (the pastor behind godhatesfags.com). I responded that, in some way, Robertson is worse. Phelps simply spouts personal vitriol and bad theology to a limited audience whose size is determined by how slow a news day happens to be. Robertson spouts ignorance in many disciplines — history, theology, sociology, etc. — and is much better funded. What a dangerous combination.
I struggled over whether to write this post. I don’t like making personal attacks on anyone — at least anyone who is identifiable. But what should a thoughtful Christian do? We cannot let something like this simply pass in silence. It’s an offense to the Gospel and yet another pretty good reason for the world, who judges Christianity by the conduct of Christians, not to take Christ’s message seriously.
I’m at a loss for further words…
Praying for Haiti,
Mark
Things (and People) That Tick Me Off
Have you ever had an inexplicably bad day? I’m talking about a day when nothing goes particularly wrong, but when you are simply inundated with things and people that rub you the wrong way. I had one of those days recently. You see, like most people, I have pet peeves. Unlike most people, I have A LOT of pet peeves. Thank goodness they don’t eat a lot. Besides, I’m not sure where to buy peeve food. But then there are the shots, the worms, the fleas, the vet visits… Arrggh! Sorry. Small digression…
Anyway, in my immense frustration I have decided to share with you, my friends, a list of the top five things (and people) that tick me off so that you will know how to avoid annoying me. Yeah, I know this is a little self-indulgent but it is cathartic for me. Read it. Consider it. Comment and let me know if you share my aversion to any of these little vexations of life. Read more…
