Category Archives: Ryan’s mind

Why Photography is an Illusion*

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I’ve had three separate conversations with three separate people over a period of about three days (sounds like that bad Jim Carry “scary” movie) all centered around one idea.

A photograph is an illusion. An illusion, not an allusion…though I’m sure you could allude to things in photographs…The whole concept of snapshots, in whatever field of study, gives the illusion that you are capturing life. But you are not. What I love about quality photographers is that they’re able to capture images that I did not even see. We may be looking at the same object but they see and capture that object from a perspective that was invisible to me. The photographer captured an aspect of their own perspective, but they did not capture reality. Reality is three dimensional, it is fluid, and dynamic.

But don’t get caught up too much in the photography application, because I think it’s a much bigger thing that just photos. My wife was learning the other day about how we test our bodies. X-rays, blood tests, etc. are all ways of taking snapshots of our body in order to asses health. But the problem with these snapshots is that in reality our bodies never sit still as they do for those snapshots. In reality our aches and pains are rarely experienced statically and neither does our body function internally in a static manner. At any given moment our body has numerous functions, cycles, and changes. If we then take a quick snapshot of what is happening in our body at a given moment all we learn is what is happening in our body at that given moment or in that particular stance or with that particular food in our body or…etc. Our body is so incredibly dynamic and fluid that snapshots do not do it justice! They do not capture health (or lack thereof) effectively. And, yet, virtually all of our methods for testing our bodies are based upon a static image.

The third aspect that this idea of a deficit snapshot came up is in defining culture. When someone asks me to tell them about Portland or Vancouver they’re usually asking me to explain the “culture of the Northwest”. What I proceed to do is define a snapshot of the NW. Funky, weird, liberal, creative, coffee, beer, McMenamins…This is what cultural anthropology originally set out to do, define and articulate culture. Missionaries will spend time studying the culture that they are preparing to go serve. We speak of churches having a specific culture. But what in the world does that even mean?! If a specific church has a culture are we referring to the youth group? Are we referring to how the elders operate? Are we referring to their history? What about the young families that are trying to bring change? What “culture” are we referring to? Culture is so incredibly fluid and changing, like a stream, that rather than being capable of capturing it with a snapshot maybe our goal should be to run along side it as much as we’re capable. A snapshot gives the illusion of understanding, but in reality all you’ve captured is your own lens. When you describe or capture a culture all you’ve done is created an image that says “here’s how I view this world in front of me from my own unique perspective” even if a missionary goes to a rural African village, lives in a hut for thirty years, an in every way lives with (and like) the people, he will still always be a white dude that made a choice to live in that manner and could at any moment choose to leave. He will always be understanding that culture from his perspective.

Snapshots serve a purpose, but I fear that in many ways we have allowed them to too greatly define reality as we understand and articulate it. I wonder about the snapshots we’ve used to define faith, the Biblical story, and what it means to follow Jesus.

I think our greatest hope is in the pursuit of bigger ears (listening), bigger hearts (empathy), and an understanding of our limits.

* Please don’t get me wrong, I love photography!

People of Peace

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a person of peace. Not a peacekeeper, but a person of peace. I define a peacekeeper as someone that avoids conflict and would prefer to shove things down and keep the status quo than to deal with things, cause conflict, and bring potentially greater and more healthy peace. I tend to fall into this second category.

I want to be known as someone who fights for peace, who makes sacrifice for peace, and who is dedicated to bringing peace. It has been interesting to view comments made over the globally loved and universally used Facebook. I’ve been noticing on facebook that we all have a hard time being people of peace. To be a person of peace you have to value other people (yes, even that person), you have to be willing to listen more than you speak, you have to value the other persons opinion, but you also have to be able to respond in love and honesty.

I believe (and have experienced lately) that it requires major sacrifice to fight for peace. Soldiers understand this, but do we understand it within our own contexts and conflicts? Are we willing and ready to sacrifice some of ourselves for peace?

Jesus was a man of peace. Don’t get me wrong, at times he was pretty harsh, in your face, and confrontational. But he was someone who was not satisfied with the status quo but instead fought to bring peace to a broken world. Talk about sacrifice right?

So I guess the big question is whether or not I want to be defined by my identity in Jesus. Do I want to be identified by the reality of the cross? Do I live a death and resurrection life? I think that if I did I might be more at peace with myself. Maybe not.

The New Normal

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My wife is always in a form of crisis. You see, her personality is such that she’s a dreamer. She’s an entrepreneur at heart, someone who loves starting things and getting others to carry them out. Her crisis comes because she struggles with a discontent because of her desire to be somewhere else, to be someone else, or to do something different. Over the years it has been a wonderful blessing for our family!

Right now, however, one of her critiques is that we’ve lost our “hippie” way. It has been a process over the last four years of us learning new things, making new commitments, and cultivating new passions. Nothing necessarily huge…cloth diapering, chemical free, organic food, gardening, riding bikes, taking the bus, etc. It’s simple stuff that many of us, if not most of us do. But lately…wait for it…we’ve begun to use paper plates occasionally! We’ve gotten addicted to (as my previous post shared) X Factor on youtube! We didn’t take the bus at all during the summer! We use ziplock bags and plastic tupperware!

Ok, so you’ve made it thus far, here is what the post has been working toward. Through my wife’s worries over our use of paper products and therefore the compromise of our ideals, we were able to notice something interesting. At first certain choices are incredibly hard. It takes constant remembering and a willingness/ability to make continual new and different choices. It’s hard. At times its exhausting. Other times making new life choices is real easy at first as you have the excitement factor motivating and encouraging you. In these situations its not until a few months into it that you hit a wall and you question why you ever even went down this road! I think this is true of breaking your addiction to creating excess garbage and waste in your home and breaking your addiction to nicotine in its different forms (obviously, this is a very loose connection that is not equal on both sides!) BUT…BUT, the wonderful place that we’ve found ourselves with some of those life changes we’ve made in the last four years is that we don’t even notice them! What was, at one point, a constant annoying choice is now second nature. I don’t even notice that we don’t use chemicals. I don’t miss them and rarely remember that we don’t have them in our home. It’s become normal, routine…

I don’t know about you, but there are certain things in my life right now that I crave to become routine and normal. There are some painful choices, annoying choices, and constant choices that just get old to make even though I know they’re the right choices to make!

I hope you find yourself wanting to make new choices, and anticipating the day that those choices become your new normal, your new ground floor to which you can continue to build up on. What a blessing it is to choose.

The Freedom to Choose

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I know a missionary who after returning “home” to America from doing mission work in Africa for some 15 years found himself sobbing in the cereal aisle as he stood there by himself with so many choices he did not know what to do. Where he had been living for the last 15 years his number of choices for nearly everything was limited to one or two items. But all of a sudden he came face to face with the culture shock of have an innumerable number of choices for something even as mundane as breakfast cereal.

In our culture choice has become the new God. Supposedly* the worst thing we can do in our world is to not allow someone the right to choose what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. We are inundated not simply with options, but so many choices that we have even created theology where God is the ultimate chooser. Which job should I take, which dining set should I buy, which china should adorn our dining room table, what restaurant should we go to, which car should I buy…and we beseech the almighty God to make his will clear for our lives because the most important thing to us is that we do not choose poorly. This blog is not even intended to go into the debates that Christians have surrounded themselves with concerning choice: abortion, gay marriage, assisted suicide, health care, and I’m sure the list could go on.

But I want to pause here because I believe there is a hypocrisy in our culture concerning the illusion of choice. I do not know who is at fault, if anybody is, but I do see it and I do believe it must be addressed. You’ll notice earlier that I threw out the word “supposedly” concerning the freedom to choose. Because while this is an underlying assumption, while there is outcry over those those whose choices have been taken away or not allowed like gay or lesbians for example, we have become perfectly comfortable with a level of suppression that pervades our society. I see this in two ways.

  1. Those who are on the outskirts of society, the poor, the elderly, homeless, etc. have been told (in many different ways) that they have no power to choose. Statistically those who grew up in the system of poverty will stay in the system of poverty. Welfare is setup in such a way so as to create suckers, feeders of the system. You are not rewarded for finding work or trying to better yourself. Trust me, I could tell you a number of stories of people who have lost, for example, their food and health benefits from the state that totaled $500 because their income went up $300. What does that teach those in poverty? Don’t make more money! The major blessing for those in poverty with regard to welfare is to have more children ’cause you get more benefits! We shut up the elderly in homes so that we don’t have to care for them. We tell them that their value is in staying to themselves, playing bingo, and knitting afghans that nobody will use.
  2. I should have clarified my previous statements because I do not see this second thing as a suppression of choice but rather a perversion of choice. We have so valued choice in our culture that it is destroying us. Watch Jerry Springer for a moment and count how many times you hear someone say something along the lines of “It’s my body, I’ll do what I want.” or “You can tell me what to do!” Somehow our primary expressions of choice have brought addiction and oppression. Off the top of my head here is a list of things that have become regular in our society through the guise of choice: overeating, using chemicals to grow our food, destroying the earth through pollution, killing babies and damaging pregnant mothers, teenage pregnancy, sex trafficking, the myth of materialism…the list could go on for a long time! Our freedom to choose is killing us! No, seriously, that’s not hyperbole but its both an expression and very much a reality that our freedom to choose has become the thing that is destroying both our physical bodies our our emotional selves (not to mention the spiritual aspect of this that I believe pervades both the physical and emotional).

As I read the stories about the life and work of Jesus, however, I see him constantly empowering people for new choice. Yes, he helps people through physical healing, but it nearly always included a “Go and sin no more” clause at the end. In his teaching, like the Sermon on the Mount specifically, I see him teaching a bunch of down-and-outs that there is blessing in being poor in spirit, in being meek, humble, persecuted, desiring justice, and to be in a place of mourning. I see Jesus teaching a message that says that “you have the freedom to make new and healthy choices! The world tells you that you’re poor but I tell you that it’s actually a blessing to be poor in spirit because the kingdom is filled with them. The world gives you reason to be in constant mourning, but I tell you that it’s actually a blessing ’cause you’ll know comfort more than any others. The world has not shown you justice and so you therefore desire it above all else, but I tell you that this desire is a blessing because if you’re seeking justice you will find it!” I see Jesus taking those whose choices have been seemingly removed from them and he is giving them hope that they have freedom to choose even in the midst of their suffering.

At the church that Jessica will be planting in a year and a half we have crafted a core value that says:

Choice-God’s love is a gift that has not only transformed our future hope but gives us the possibility for restored lives today. Intentionally living out this reality is a gift that can be chosen by any follower of his. We are given the gift of choice.

But is this just one more choice in the midsts of a world inundated with choices? Is the choice to enter into kingdom living that eventually culminates in a clearly heavenly kingdom just one more choice in a world thats overrun with choices? Or is there something different about the message and the method?

Change, Loss, and Sheet Music

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My purpose in blogging is not to be some dissonent voice, always complaining or critiquing things that I don’t like or disagree with. With that said, however, I must talk about an article written in the Christian Chronicle

I will not include the whole article (though you can click the link above to read it) but I do want to paste below the questions that were answered by a panel of college choral directors:

Were you raised in cappella Churches of Christ? If so, what are your earliest memories of singing in the church? If not, please describe your own experience.

Some have suggested that the tradition of four-part a cappella singing in Churches of Christ is quickly disappearing. Do you agree or disagree with that statement? Why or why not?

Is it true that our congregations are singing fewer (and in some cases, none) of the great Protestant four-part hymns and are moving quickly to praise songs? If so, what does this mean for the church as a whole?

Are we losing the “common language” of the sacred song in Churches of Christ — meaning that grandchildren don’t know the music of grandparents? If so, are we experiencing a fragmentation of the main corporate activity in our common worship experience? Please elaborate on your response.

How would you describe the overall quality of singing in our churches? Better or worse than in the past? Are we producing a generation that does not know how to read music or shaped notes? What are the ramifications to moving from hymnals to singing from a big screen?

Have you noticed a difference in the quality, experience, ability to “hold a part,” etc., of students moving from high school to your university music groups in recent years? Please elaborate.

Before I say my piece let me say that the intervewiees responses were pretty solid for the most part (from my perspective) and the questions seem pretty leading.

Here are a few of my thoughts. I value a ceppella music. I would also say that I’m learning to value it more as we get deeper into church planting. And if I were to be honest I’d probably have to say that I have no sort of emotional, theological, or tradition-connected desire to worship in a ceppella style. Therefore I try to realize that many people have fond memories of this style of worship, many people have strong theology concerning what type of worship is apropriate, etc.

But seriously! Sheet music? Is reading notes and having hymnals much of a concern of the church? The churches of Christ are hemorrhaging, as a whole they have lost their voice in the United States, and do we really think that singing four part harmonies is something that we need be concerned about? What is the purpose and concern of four part harmonies anyway? Is it the beautiful sound of our voices coming together in unity? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure that happens even if we all sing the melody. Oh, and let me say real quick as a lifelong church of Christ preachers kid…I can’t read a single note to save my life.

Concerning singing classic hymns, what’s the worry? I think some hymns are beautiful and speak powerful theology. Honestly, some hymns need to go. But why are these hymns valued? Many (not all) are valued because they resonated with people, they were connected to peoples narratives, their stories, their experiences. Many hymns have value because they spoke to thier theology, worries, and concerns. But as peoples worries change, as peoples theology changes, as people find new music to ressonate with new experiences and their own individual stories it only makes sense to sing new music. Don’t get me wrong, part of our journey of faith is remembering the bigger story, remembering where we came from, and therefore valuing the past. But there is absolutly nothing more sacred about Great is thy Faithfulness and Shout to the Lord (I know even this song is dated, but I wanted something that most would be aware of). To value one generations songs over another is wrong (whether your a youngster or and elder).

Here’s what it all comes down to. If you’ve glazed over the rest of this, please read this one statement: People do not resist change, they resist loss.

I believe that if we take time to reflect on that statement it allows us to understand better where the author of those questions is coming from. It allows us to give more grace and freedom to those who do not want to let go of, what I believe to be, silly things like sheet music and four part harmonies. Many in an older generation is grieving losing reminders, monuments, and memories associated with their stories. The great problem, and one that another blog must deal with, is that the world has changed so incredibly, so rapidly over the past number of years that change must happen. So some healthy question we may want to begin asking include: what is a healthy way to grieve loss together? How do we engage in change while still valuing our stories (both past, present, and future)?

peace.