Four Days

It’s four days until your birthday,
I’ll never forget the date.
It’s a month and two years before mine.

Today it’s two years, minus one month, plus four days,
Since I first met you.
And I still remember you.

One month and four days,
Shy of two years.
Time is faster than I am.

Three hundred and sixty five,
Minus thirty five,
Plus another three hundred and sixty five.
That’s six hundred and ninety five days,
That I’ve wanted to hold you.

You should have told me,
Six hundred and ninety five days ago,
That I was a fool,
That you’d be my greatest folly.

Two years, minus a month, take away four days,
Take away everything I thought I knew.
Replaced it with you.
I thought we’d make two.

It’s been fifty six days, since you didn’t say goodbye.
That’s one thousand three hundred and forty four hours, roughly, without you.
That’s eighty thousand, six hundred and forty minutes,
My heart has felt, roughly.
Fifty six nights, I’ve been lonely.

And you’re the only one,
Who’s ever made me feel this way.

It’s four days before your birthday.
And I thought of a thousand things to get you.
But you won’t say one word.
It’s one day, and one day more, one day more than that, and one day more.

It’s one month and four days until my birthday.
Then it will be two years since we first met.

Two years since I would fall in love.
Two years since the cards came crashing down!
Two years before you’d be haunt my dreams!
Two years, and you’d never love me.

Two years subtract four days and one month.
All my hopes, divided by a negative one.

It’s four days until your birthday.
Blow out all your candles,
Snuff out every last one.

Advertising the CD with my art work...

Adullam Homily: Who is Our Jesus?

-Before I begin I just want to say we had 9 people out tonight, including my good friend Jon from my days back at ALBC, it was really nice to be able to show off my Church to a friend from the good old days. I was very proud of everyone.

I preached this homily tonight, aside from some loud dance music coming up from the lower level (which couldn't be helped... aside from perhaps shooting the lousy DJ... but the mennonites would have gotten wind of that and been mad...)

A Printable PDF version is available here.

Who is Our Jesus?

Who is our Jesus. I’ve known several Jesus’ in my life. There was the Jesus I saw when I was not quite three years old, after I was taken out of the swimming pool, and some firemen were giving me CPR… hmmm maybe that’s what made me gay? That Jesus lived in a land with puffy clouds, a street of gold, and go figure he was white and looked exactly like the Sunday school material.

I learned about another Jesus soon after, one who was an extension of my mother and father, we called Him heavenly father, because apparently we don’t care about teaching kids good trinitarian theology. This Jesus could tell my mom and dad everything I did wrong, I didn’t know if He would rat me out all the time, but he was always there to make me feel guilty whenever I did something wrong. This Jesus was also really good at helping me when I hadn’t studied. I would sit down pull out my pencil, and I’d explain to Him that I really should have studied but I was really busy playing Mario World, so if He could help me out, I’d appreciate it. This was also the Jesus who I would try and manipulate so I could find clean socks in the laundry room. “If you are real, then you’ll find me socks!”

Eventually I heard about a Jesus who loved me. Now this Jesus was kinda a push over, see He loved you no matter what, and He was always with you, whether you were good or not. But you should be good, because quite frankly He’s gonna drive you nuts till you start being good. But this Jesus, you could talk to like He was your friend, it was OK to just say hi. This Jesus actually had answers to questions that were important. Actually He had every answer, you just had to take a scripture passage out of context, to show that apparently the writer of Job knew that the world was a big ball that floated in space. But the nice thing about this Jesus is, He listened, He cared, He actually cared. This was how I understood Jesus when I first really met him.

In my travels I’ve met a few other Jesus’ through other people. There was the Reformed Baptist Jesus, who had your entire life laid out for you, and quite frankly you were just along for the rather painful and pointless ride. Just wait it out, and eventually He’d hand you your crown, and you’d be a good and faithful servant on a string.
There was the Christian and Missionary Alliance Jesus, who you needed to avoid making eye contact with, otherwise he’d send you off to missions in Africa.
At Prov I met the Mennonite Jesus, who was concerned with you getting married, so you could have sex and have babies, because that was how you kept the Church full. This Jesus didn’t really tell other people about Jesus, because everyone who was important was already in the Church, this Jesus was your heavenly cousin twice removed, on your mom’s side.
There was the emotional orgasm Jesus who I was introduced to through several very attractive and very zealous worship leaders who played “the heart of worship” ad nauseum.
There was the Pentecostal/Charismatic Jesus, who was actually Satan in disguise, who convinced people to speak in different languages, and got people to argue about things, instead of focusing on the important part, which was telling people about the Reformed Baptist Jesus.

There’s this guy, we’ll say his name’s Steve, and he’s my friend Colin’s boss. The first time I saw Steve across the bar, I felt like, wow if I could just get him to notice me all my problems would be solved. I mentioned this to Colin and he laughed and said, you know you probably don’t really want that. I said maybe but every time I saw Steve something in me wanted him to notice me. Then one day, I heard him talk with his friends, and it all fell apart. You see, Steve has the most gay voice you’ve ever heard. He’s like a gay valley girl. The instant I heard him talk, everything changed, and I realized, I hadn’t really gotten to know him at all.

And so it was with Jesus. I remember one night, I was at a bible study for our youth group. My youth pastor near the end joked that he was going to have a friend hack my iMac and see what I was hiding on it. Now, I didn’t realize what my pastor meant was porn. See this one in particular, was always convinced I was looking at naked women… he wasn’t too bright. Of course I wasn’t, I know what you’re thinking, naked men? Nope, but I did have a pirated copy of Photoshop 3. And this as I understood it, was sin. I was so scared my pastor would find out, I went home and deleted it, and got rid of any evidence I knew of.

The next night, is when I really heard Jesus for the first time. See, I told Him, that I really did want to do what was right, I really did want to do what honoured Him, but that was hard. It was funny, because I told Him too, that I really liked Photoshop, and if it was at all possible I’d like to be able to have my own copy some how if he would work that out for me. I didn’t really see that happening though since the software cost in the area of six hundred dollars.
But either way, what was important was that I honour Him. And for the first time, Jesus talked back. I can’t tell you exactly what He said, but for the first time my words didn’t get stuck at the ceiling. God reached down, and my heart leapt at his touch. I started singing, and laughing, and telling God any and everything and wondering why nobody told me that there was a close Jesus.
By the way, within two weeks, I found out that there was a version of Photoshop available at a price I could afford, that fit all my needs, and I had the money for it soon after. I’ll leave the cynics to dismiss that.

In the Hebrew Bible we are told that Elohim created man and woman in God’s image. Cameron Mackenzie my first year at Prov taught us about idolatry. The notion where people would take an object and carve it into the image of their god and worship it. They understood that the god was not in the object itself (typically) though they did see it tied to a certain geological area. But people used object to let them know what their idea of their god looked like. The Torah, the Ketuvim, Nevi’im, the Gospels and the Epistles, all make it clear, idolatry is bad. Now why was this? “God said it so I believe it right?” Well if you wanna have a shallow faith, and if that’s how your zeal leads you, I’ll leave you to God.

Cameron explained to our class however, that the reason idolatry was a sin, was because we already had an image of God that wasn’t graven in lifeless stone. God carved Himself onto our hearts, and into our lives. Some people have this rather deistic approach to how they view God, that he wound up the clock and took off. I think Scripture makes it clear, God wound up the clock and then dove into it like an artist with clay.

The Jesus I learned to know in my college years, was a Jesus who paints, and sculpts and sings. Far away from my deterministic, heavy handed, binary Jesus, this new one seemed to enjoy the lives of people I couldn’t stand. And this new Jesus could be seen almost weeping on souls that refused to actually willingly accept the changes he wanted to make to their hearts. This Jesus was a whole lot more vulnerable, this Jesus was a whole lot more human.

Now back to our question, who is our Jesus?

 37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
… 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

I once heard a man who I consider to be one of the greatest influences on my life tell me that he was trying to learn to identify with the suffering of Christ. I thought that sounded brilliant and far beyond me. Two years later I was hurled out of the closet, against my will and not at all confident in how I should view myself. But I learned a bit what Gethsemane must have been like. At that point I think I met most fully another Jesus, one who I’d started to know in high school, and who I became very acquainted with as I came out of the closet and dealt with my next year at Prov. This was the Jesus who at night when my pillow was soaked with tears, and people who I thought would never turn their backs on me were no where to be found, fell on me with the simple knowledge that He was with me. This was the Jesus who kept telling me He wasn’t done with me when I couldn’t understand how I could still do anything with my life as a pastor.

So who is our Jesus?

I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these sisters of mine, you did to me.

Our Jesus is broken, hurt, and alone. He doesn’t know if anyone loves Him, and She’s pretty sure they shouldn’t. She doesn’t know why she’s in the situation She’s in, and He’s pretty sure nobody is interested in helping Him. He might be on the corner drunk out of his mind, or she might be sitting in her room in Tuxedo wondering why money feels so cold against her skin. Our Jesus may not even know if you should call Them a He or a She. Our Jesus still suffers. Our Jesus is in this room with you right now, and you can see Him on each other’s faces. Maybe this week you didn’t feel like the least of these, but I know I did. Our Jesus has left His finger prints in the lives of your friends.

 16Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'
 18"But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.'
 19"Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.'
 20"Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.'
 21"The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'
 22" 'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'
 23"Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full.

Tonight Jesus says, go out into the city, bring in the young and the old, the jewish, the black, the aboriginal, bring in widows, bring in orphans, bring in good church kids who are dead inside. Bring in the drunks, the sketchy. Bring in those who aren’t safe, those like me. Bring in the dykes and the fags, suffer yourself to even bring in a straight person. But make my banquet hall full, and don’t tell Him it’s someone else’s job.

For what you refused to do for the last of these, my brothers, and my sisters, you refused to do to Me. Jesus says, the love that you refused to His beloved, you refused to Him.

Sermon

I think I just wrote a good sermon... and now my prep work is done for tomorrow. Got it all printed out, got everything planned out. I am really confident that tonight's Adullam will at least have some damned good stuff from me. Actually Brian suggested I start sending out the material even if people don't come so you get it regardless. I think that's actually a good idea, so I'm gonna send a link to this to everyone.

Things

Today was, well today was a lousy day. you know when you wake up, and you just feel like today's gonna be a lousy day? Yah today was one of those days. Some people from Adullam were gonna go see the new Narnia movie, for 3:30, at just before 3 I get a call from Rob (they should have just been pulling into the theatre at this point) saying, oh hey we don't wanna stand you up, but Jacob has to finish some things so we were wondering if we could do the 4 30 showing. Mark actually met me there and he came and like ran up behind me at that point and we ended up agreeing that that was fine, well Mark said it was fine, I made it clear I was pretty pissed off. And I don't know why I was that mad. But I was really angry. I've been angry all day. I'm never angry. This is weird, this is the second time that I've felt like this in, well I mean it's been weeks but, still I just feel like. I dono,

How was the movie? Oh it was good, they did some weird things, they threw in some things that weren't in the books, Susan apparently had a thing going with Caspian who knew?

It was funny after the movie I asked if anyone was still wanting to do anything, nobody said anything, I think people were trying to figure out if they really did want to, and someone just started talking about something else which of course destroys a group conversation, so I just walked away. Then I had Adam and Mike texting me to find out each other's phone numbers, because apparently I'm everyone else's phone book? Jacob came up behind me and we ended up chatting, he asked how I was doing, and I told him I was really angry. It was funny, he asked what I was angry about, and I said a lot of things, one of them being that for the first time in five years I'm suicidal again. I'm hoping it goes away, but it's never come back since I attempted back in high school. But last night I couldn't get out of my head the idea of going to the provencher bridge down by the forks, and just jumping over the edge. I'm not sure if that'd actually kill me though, I was kinda worried it would just get me really wet. The weird thing is, I haven't thought like this since before I went to Prov. I think part of it has to do with the fact that I'm starting to question whether or not Adullam will ever work. Other people suggest that perhaps I have too much of myself invested, that's one way to look at it. Of course these are the people who can barely be bothered to give an ounce of themselves to someone else so, I don't know. Perhaps there's a happy balance somewhere but, I dono.

I dono, I think I've actually begun just feeling anger because my mind is sick of feeling hurt. I've been letting go of a lot of things lately, Josh is now entirely out of the picture, over the last few years I've lost every friend that I had growing up. Now nearly all my friends from Prov have fallen by the way side, some people that I thought I'd never loose touch with, don't return my messages. There's some friendships that I'm just sick of even having it assumed that we're friends since they don't give me the time of day. It's funny, a lot of Christian artists sing about loosing everything, and how they'd still serve God. I think we often say that meaning giving away our life. But have you ever lived a life where you've lost everything? I don't know if I've lost everything, but I've lost a lot. That hurts more than I'd like it to.

Random Update:

OK so a few random things, I've been kinda busy doing nothing lately, been roller blading a bit which has been fun, getting my endurance back up. My mom is gone to BC for a wedding of a cousin of mine who I don't think my mom really even knows, (I'm jaded and don't think anything of it since I know that whole side of the family wouldn't come to my wedding so I just don't care.) thus the house is left to Dad, me and Serena... I'm having major troubles not putting a tent peg through my sister's head since she has a really bad habit of taking anything that is even half way organizing it and basically throwing it places. The bathroom has a collection of her clothes which I continue to keep throwing into the hall way to remind her that the entire house is not her changing room and she should clean up after herself. She never does dishes and just leaves them in the sink (when we have a dish washer?) She always makes huge messes of left over food on the counter and never wipes it up. The other day I walked into the kitchen to find a suit jacket on the table, I was entirely tempted to accidently spill yogurt on it... I think I still might since I'm sure two days later it's still there. (Some days I used to wonder if I was gay because the idea of ever living with someone like my mom or sister was simply unbearable.)

Hmm other stuff, I have a vague idea of what's going on at Adullam the next few weeks, I think this week we're gonna talk about who Jesus is today, I'm probably actually going to write something and read it. I figure it'll give me a much different vibe than normal which is good. The next week we're gonna have a camera car poster rally... which should be interesting. And then after that we're gonna have a celebration of our One Year Anniversary, which it looks like Jacob and Melody won't be there for because of RHP, I really kinda was hoping to get a large chunk of the people who have been out at all this year to come, but I think if anything it'll just be a wash like a lot of meetings around this time are. I think next year I might just take May off and cancel Adullam for a month, or put Rob in charge or something.

I've been busy with Random stuff, yesterday I went Roller blading, then down to Corydon with Bryan for some Italian food at this nice little place we found, on the way home I swung by the bar to find Jon bar tending, he'd made almost no tips and I felt bad, it was about an hour before closing it looks rather grim I figured I'd chat with him for a bit, but I dono why but there seemed to be a massive influx of customers shortly after I came, Jon accredited this to my mojo. I gladly took credit.

Today I roller bladed, then had a nap, then went out to the bar, I hung out with Jon who was tending upstairs, initially it was slow but eventually he had some big crowds, I bugged one or two people to tip better which was fun. I also washed a few tables because Jon was trying to set up but there were several problems including a burnt out motor on a fridge that could have caused a fire if it hadn't been found out. As the night wore on the bar got busy and I left Jon to the hordes of people wanting to throw money after liquor. I sat down in a booth, and soon after had a Filipino guy who was probably in his mid thirties I think come and sit and start talking to me, of course me being the generally social person started chatting him, eventually I noticed that he'd decided to start rubbing his foot along my leg as we started talking. A little thing that you might not know about me, I'm a sucker for being hit on, but I'm also a huge tease, which is a bad combination for a pastor. Anyway we talked for a bit, he didn't seem too bright, I'm slowly coming to realize that it's really not like in the movies, smart wonderful hot people don't hit on other people at bars, moderately attractive, typically half drunk people who are being run by their base instincts are the ones who do that. So you don't have witty banter which leads to passionate making out in a hotel room, you get drunken groping and that's honestly not that appealing. Not that it really went that far, I don't think I gave enough encouragement or something he soon decided to go talk to a friend. I think I was supposed to go follow him? But I mean, I'm not exactly the sort to do that sort of thing. So whatever, it was funny. I got a kick out of it and it was fine. I was actually wondering at what point I'd eventually have to tell him sorry I think you have the wrong idea or something.

Actually I mentioned it to another friend at the bar, and some guy beside me said that I needed to get more experience before a relationship. I replied with, you mean be slutty? He said that's what men do. That kinda angered me. I am a man, and maybe some days yah I feel like being a bit more base, a little less inclined towards wanting my physical and sexual sides to remain connected with my intellectual and spiritual sides, but I don't think that means that I'm required to some how be slutty. Problem is I think the systems that are at play especially in the gay world once you're out of school, and basically into the normal working world sorta situation like I am, the best way to meet someone is to sleep around and eventually hope you find someone you wanna just keep doing that with exclusively. Which is really frustrating. Ultimately I think the system is broken, but I don't know where I'd even begin to try and fix such a thing. And either way it won't be fixed in time with me. But the fact is, this is the sins of my parents generation being visited upon me. People my parents age didn't do enough to promote gay rights, most people their age who are gay didn't do enough to promote healthy ways to found relationships. So there's this huge sub culture issue. I've had some people tell me it's just as bad in the heterosexual world. And that might be true, but the thing is I know there's also a lot of pockets where it's better in hetero land, and those don't really seem to exist in gay land.

Album Suggestion: Run Kid Run's Love at the Core

So I've decided, now I'm going to try and recommend an album that I am a fan of every Thursday, I'm gonna be posting these at 9 am on every thursday... I think. I personally find music from Christian artists can be really helpful for challenging me to potentially view God in a manner that's a bit different. I also know that finding good music that can inspire your faith is often more difficult than even having the faith in the first place!

Hence since I tend to buy about a CD a week, I'm going to go and bring out random recommendations. I imagine sometimes I'll recommend one or two albums, in this case I'm going to start out by recommending one.

So, who do I think you should buy this week? Run Kid Run! Now don't let their name fool you, they're actually a really solid band. This is their second release as Run Kid Run, but they existed sans one member as Sidewalk Slam for several years. While the former project was more a punk/pop punk band that existed on a Christian label, their new(er) Project RKR is a much more solidly Christian album. Their earlier release "This is Who We Are" was probably one of the best debut albums I've seen from any band (given the fact that this is the former Sidewalk Slam though that makes more sense). Probably one of Run Kid Run's greatest strengths is the fact that they write beautiful Christian Anthems, similar to bands like Superchick, Thousand Foot Krutch, or Five Iron Frenzy, they have a habit of writing songs that can easily become a personal "Theme Song."

High lights from this album, well that's hard since even the songs that don't stand out as much as the rest, on any other album I'd say would still be solid songs. Over all this is one of those albums that it doesn't make sense to cherry pick songs. If you like one song on this album odds are you're going to enjoy the whole thing. Of course that brings about perhaps the one difficult criticism I make, the album sounds incredibly tight, but at the same time, it's hard to remember that one song isn't another. I think the main reason for this is that there isn't that much variety in David Curtis' (lead vocals) voice. Which isn't to suggest that he sings in a monotone, actually there's typically a great deal of passion in there. But there's a very consistent sound through out the whole album. But again this is only a minor complaint. Over all the whole album is incredibly catchy. If you like a band that can put together a good hook, you'll love Run Kid Run.

In case you're wondering, as I'd mentioned before they have a habit of writing songs that the listener can really connect with, so which song really connected with me? Well there's a few, Rescue Me, Fall Into the Light, and I confess One in a Million always makes me think of Josh (arg) but more than anything the song that I love the most off this album is their first single "Captives Come Home." Which I feel like it should be the theme song of Adullam.

Second verse and chorus:

Words come and go.... but how will your actions unfold
Your character will be shown when lights go down
Now creeping shadows call your name
Possession is their claim now
Turn it around turn it around

As I'm waiting for the world to end
I'm clinging on to oxygen
Pulling captives by the hand
Come home
Come home

So there you have it, it's cheap on iTunes You can but it here and I encourage you to do it only $9.90 for Canadians, probably cheaper for Americans.