Finding Balance

"I'll be working here forever,
at least until I die"
                              - Huey Lewis

We all have one day a week that knocks the wind out of us.  For a lot of people it's Monday, but for me it is Tuesday.  I've really begun to hate the second day of the work week.  Due to the nature of my work schedule Tuesday often feels like the real start of the week.  Most weeks as I slowly decompress over Saturday night and into Sunday I manage to forget the loads of work I need to get done.  Monday I am usually hyper-focused on teaching Monday night at the dinner and discussion gathering we do at the teen center where I work.  So when I wake Tuesday morning the to-do list I mentally put away sometime over the weekend comes roaring back into my consciousness.  Adding to my Tuesday reality slap is a weekly mid-morning staff meeting.  If I'm not feeling totally overwhelmed already by 11am Tuesday, I feel like I'm drowning by the end of this meeting.  And so it was today.  I really am starting to wish Tuesday didn't exist.

Recently, I have started doing yoga occasionally.  I have made a couple of discoveries as I have tried to contort myself in to higher flexibility, strength and a relaxed mind.  First, I am not flexible!!!  Second, I dig the focus on breathing and that does help me clear my mind.  But the biggest discovery is something the yoga instructor on the cell phone says during the session I have been doing with my wife.  At one point the voice on the app says, "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation."

Did you catch that?  "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation."

In the middle of days that feel very overloaded - days like Tuesday - I keep thinking about that simple phrase.  What exactly does it mean to "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation?"

For nearly all of my life I have operated on one side of that equation, effort.  I have always approached challenges, struggles or problems in life with effort.  I would simply take the issues that presented themselves and work harder.  It comes from being a part of a family, and sub-culture, where working hard and being busy were the things that got you into heaven.  As I have gotten older what I have discovered is that all the effort has a price.  The price you pay for being almost exclusively on this side of the equation comes to you when you least expect it.  For me it comes out in tears and anxiety.  I have a simple indicator from when I am overloaded - I cry.  I don't "have a good cry."  It is not something I plan.  Crying sneaks up on me.  I cry at something I hear on the radio, or some mildly touching song lyric, or while singing in church.  It happened recently as I wrote a letter to a friend in a coffee shop and I found myself bawling like a baby.  Crying is not something I do too much, especially in a public space.  So I knew something was up.  But the crying is not a big deal, or at least not as big as the toll all the effort takes in the long run.  All the years of pushing through, powering on, working harder wears down one's soul.  For me that slow sanding on my soul has left me tired and filled with anxiety.  The product of always fighting, is that you end up with no fight left in you at all.

The other side of the equation is relaxation.  I've never been too good at this.  A couple years ago as I sat on a beach in Hawaii my wife asked me, "Are you OK?  I've never seen you do nothing."  That pretty much sums up my experience with relaxation.

So how does one "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation?"  A clue might be found in the Biblical idea of Sabbath.  God takes a day off after his work, and expects us to do the same.  This practice is meant to teach us that God is in control and doesn't need us to make things happen every single day.  God is perfectly capable of providing all we need without us making it happen.  When we stop working - stop putting in effort - we are trusting that God will take care of it - whatever it is.

The motto of the college I graduated from is "ora et labor" (meaning pray and work).  Is it possible that my alma mater's motto and "try to find the balance between effort and relaxation" are connected?  Could they be the same thing?  Are we to work / put in effort and also simultaneously relax into what my counselor calls "a restful reliance on God?"

All I know is this.  On a day like today, where I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water, I find my mind wandering to that yoga voice saying, "Try to find the balance between effort and relaxation" and praying that I can find that balance in my life.

Joel K

Here's Stephen Colbert...

I wrote in today's square (Sept. 8, 2015) on my calendar months ago, "Colbert starts the Late Show" noting that in tonight's broadcast of The Late Show on CBS Stephen Colbert will take the reigns from the legendary David Letterman. My daughters have commented on my calendar note with some concern. They might have a good reason to query me after witnessing my nearly daily viewing of Colbert's former show - Comedy Central's The Colbert Report - a daily satirical news show with Colbert's character, "Steven Colbert," parodying the bombastic style of political TV pundits.

I have always watched late-night TV.  On the weekends I tuned into Saturday Night Live and still flip it on in time to catch Weekend Update most weeks.  As for the weeknights, I was first drawn to Carson, then Leno and Letterman, and then O'Brian.  However, once Leno lost his edge my interest wained and I boycotted him all together after he had O'Brian fired so he could re-join the Tonight Show.  Subsiquently, O'Brian moved out of my reach since I don't have cable.  Letterman settled in at CBS and ultimately began to just coast, then I drifted away.  I have never really given Jimmy Kimmel a chance.  So finally in recent years my late-night viewing moved to streaming late-night shows of a political bent during daylight hours. Having always loved satire and I found Comedy Central's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I fell completely in love with them during the 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaigns.

After the election I stayed, and I became an even bigger fan of Colbert. Two things sealed the deal. An interview on NPR where Colbert shared that he teaches Sunday School (when asked to share something people might not know about him), and a 2010 Christmas rant about faith, politics and poverty that ended with: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”  I have been trying to figure out how to get this TV sermon into conversations, sermons, classes, and worship services ever since.

So now, as Colbert takes over The Late Show, there has been a lot of interest and speculation in who will show up - the real Stephen Colbert, or the finely crafted character used on his former show. The fascinating thing here is how well the satire has been done. With Colbert the satirical line between the real and the ridiculous has been blurred to a point that discussion about the nature of the real Stephen Colbert is a necessity. The irony for me is that in recent years what has made me admire Colbert the most has been his transparency in interviews - the times he has shown us who he really is.  In particuar his openness about joy, suffering and humanity.

I have often quoted his statements in the 2009 RollingStone magazine feature on him.
Check out these truths:

"I have this on my computer [removes a piece of paper taped to his computer]. It says, "Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God."

"Not to get too deep here, but the most valuable thing I can think of is to be grateful for suffering. That is a sublime feeling, and completely inexplicable and illogical, but no one doesn't suffer. So the degree to which you can be aware of your own humanity is the degree to which you can accept, with open eyes, your suffering. To be grateful for your suffering is to be grateful for your humanity, because what else are you going to do – say, "No, thanks"? It's there. "Smile and accept," said Mother Teresa. And she was talking to people who had it rough. That's not how you make jokes, though."

"
I have another little piece of paper back here [removes a piece of paper taped to the edge of his desk]. It just says, "Work," because nothing ever gets better unless you work. So I have "work" here and "joy" over there, and I try to put the two together somehow."

He was just as transparent over the summer in a GQ article. Note these insights:

“Tragedy is sacred,” he said. “People's suffering is sacred.”

"I'm very grateful to be alive, even though I know a lot of dead people.” The urge to be grateful, he said, is not a function of his faith. It's not “the Gospel tells us” and therefore we give thanks. It is what he has always felt: grateful to be alive. “And so that act, that impulse to be grateful, wants an object. That object I call God. Now, that could be many things. I was raised in a Catholic tradition. I'll start there. That's my context for my existence, is that I am here to know God, love God, serve God, that we might be happy with each other in this world and with Him in the next—the catechism. That makes a lot of sense to me. I got that from my mom. And my dad. And my siblings.”

Speaking on the death of his father and two brothers in a plane crash when he was 10:
“ ‘You gotta learn to love the bomb,’ ” he said. “Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that's why. Maybe, I don't know. That might be why you don't see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It's that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.”

I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.

I asked him if he could help me understand that better, and he described a letter from Tolkien in response to a priest who had questioned whether Tolkien's mythos was sufficiently doctrinaire, since it treated death not as a punishment for the sin of the fall but as a gift. “Tolkien says, in a letter back: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. It doesn't mean you want it. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.”

So tonight when Stephen Colbert takes over the The Late Show I'll be watching. I'll be watching to see which Colbert shows up, but I'll also be watching the Colbert that knows "I am here to know God, love God, serve God," and the fellow traveler who has learned "to love the bomb" because what else are you going to do – say, "No, thanks"?

Joel K

Stephen Colbert was also a guest in the most recent season of the excellent show Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. You can see that episode here

WALK THE LINE - Sermon by Kirk Heynen

I had the privilege of listening to the audio of my friend Kirk Heynen delivering a wonderful grace filled sermon that starts with some thoughts on Johnny Cash.  I was blessed and encouraged by Kirk's words, Johnny's words, and The Word.  You can hear it here.

New Sermon - "The Body Of Christ" - I Corinthians 12

Last Sunday I had the privilege to preach at Crosspoint Community Church  on 

"The Body Of Christ" - I Corinthians 12

You can listen to the sermon audio at:  http://www.crosspointcommunity.com/sermons/

To live and Pro-Life in Anchorage (Remix)

" But I tell you to love your enemies, and pray for those that persecute you"
- Jesus (Matt. 5:44)

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse."
- Paul (Rom. 12:14)

In light of the headline on the cover of today's (Aug. 24, 2015) Alaska Dispatch News that reads "Anchorage Gunfire: Four incidents leave 1 dead, 2 teens in critical condition" I am re-running this post from 2/17/15.  
To date, there have been 18 homicides (five more than in all of 2014) in Anchorage in 2015.  
- JK

Violence and death seem to be everywhere these days, or at least it feels like that to me.  2015 has opened with the national and international news being filled with ISIS beheadings, terror attacks in Paris and Copenhagen, the "war" on terrorism, and the residual coverage of  Ferguson and Eric Garner.  The local news in Anchorage hasn't been any better.  Daily it seems the we hear of a new shooting or murder in the city.  In fact after 2014 being the lowest year for murder in Alaska's largest city in 20 years (1), 2015 started with 31 firearm incidents with "credible evidence," 11 shootings, and 4 murders (all in one week) in January (2).  As of this writing the city has seen 10 homicides this year after a total of 13 last year (3).  It has been a violent year around the world, and close to home.

How do we respond to all this violence and death?  It is a question I have been asking myself a lot in recent weeks.  I have watched online where the typical (maybe even the prevailing) response seems to be the establishment of blame.  I have overheard the citizens of my city recoil in shock that the gunfire has erupted in their neighborhood.  I have noticed the tendency to quickly dismiss the departed as drug dealers, gang members, terrorists, targets, or Muslims.  In each case the "othering" of the victims and/or those doing the shooting has left me feeling empty.  The reactions that support the idea of redemptive violence do nothing to fill the void.  The trite dismissal of those departed as getting what they deserve only makes the chasm in my soul larger.

I grew up in a world were I was taught to be "pro-life."  In the context of that upbringing this meant believing that life starts at conception and that no baby should be aborted - something I still believe.  Also while I was growing up I was taught that we didn't just kill animals unless it was for population control (deer) or they were raised for the purpose of food (cows, chickens, etc.).  I was taught that all life sacred and not disposable.  However, when I think back to those formative years, and reflect on what I'm hearing now, it seems that those of us who would say we are "pro-life" often value life more in some circumstances than others.  It appears to me that if you are a fetus the value on your life is high, but if your a 14 year old kid shot in a drug deal your life is less valuable or even expendable.  If you are a person of authority (solider/police officer) your life is deemed more important than others.  I get the feeling that if your a Christian your life is somehow more valuable than a Muslim.  It appears to me that we are often/always ranking the value of other peoples lives.  What changed since conception?  Does personal choice, circumstance, beliefs, or position change the value of ones life?

How should we be responding to the violence in our world and our city?  Is the biblical response distancing ourselves from those involved based on proximity, perceived guilt, difference in beliefs or color - in short their "otherness."?  Is the righteous response more violence, with the hope that it will bring about an end?  Is the correct response to just continue on like nothing has happened?  How do we live a life, and faith, that is holistically pro-life?

In Genesis 4 we read about the murder of Able by Cain.  A couple things in that passage cause me to wonder about our response.  First of all God does not kill Cain.  Cain is punished, but God does not enter into redemptive violence.  Furthermore, God marks Cain so that no one else will kill him for his sins either.  God does not see the answer to Abel's murder to be more violence.  Second, Abel's blood cries out from the ground and God hears it.  How often are those that are killed in war, in terrorism, in a parking lot in our city just a news story to us?  Who often do we see the death around us as a statistic?  Do we stop to hear the blood of those slain crying out to God, and to us, from the ground?

Around the globe and around my city there is blood crying out to us from the ground.  What is it saying?  How do we bear witness to those departed?  How do we honor life, and life lost?  Can we choose to mourn those who have died without establishing blame...just mourn that a human life - a life created by God in in His image - that has ended?  When was the last time we stopped in our Sunday worship services, or in our daily lives, to pray for the people we often think of as crime statistics? Can we open up our eyes and hearts to bear witness to the violence around us?  Can we pray for the victims and the perpetrators?  Can we cry out to God to make it stop?

Joel K

"War what is it good for?  Absolutely nothing"
- Edwin Starr


(1) - http://www.adn.com/article/20150103/anchorage-sees-13-homicides-2014-fewest-2-decades
(2) - http://www.adn.com/article/20150129/spike-violent-crime-be-met-police-shakedowns
(3) - Number based on a search of http://www.raidsonline.com linked from the Anchorage Police Department website.

Like Painting a Mustache On the Mona Lisa

I have noticed a somewhat disturbing a trend in worship music for a while now - the addition of new words or choruses on older songs. In particular hymns seem to be getting these re-writes. Let's take a look at an example.

Most Sunday's during my formative years the church service in my tradition ended with a four line song people referred to as simply "The Doxology."  The real title was "Praise God, from Whom all Blessings Flow" which in reality is the last four lines of a longer hymn ("Awake, My Soul, and With the Sun"). The words of the "The Doxology" were written in 1674 by Thomas Ken and put to a tune from the Ge­ne­van Psalt­er (Old 100th) that was composed in 1551 by Lou­is Bour­geois.  Thus, "The Doxology" has been serving the worshipping church for 340-465ish years.

In 2008, another Thomas - Thomas Miller - decided, that after continual service for longer than the United States has been a country, that the "The Doxology" needed new lyrics. Mr. Miller penned a new set of words, in particular a chorus made up mostly of "Praise God" and then copyrighted it. Let's notice two things here.

First, is the audacity that it takes to re-write a song that has stood the test of time - a LONG time. It is very much like someone deciding to paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Who, after 500 years thinks, "I don't think Leonardo da Vinci got it right, I need to fix his painting"?  So it is with "The Doxology."  Why does a classic, used for over 300 years, need a re-write and who has the guts to say "I can improve on this masterpiece"?  We don't let people paint over masterpieces of fine art (or even touch them, or stand too close to them) - we leave them as the master works they are so that people can enjoy and admire them. We don't allow people to take large chunks of another person's writing and create a new work (which is plagiarism in the literary and academic world) that can be published or copyright protected.

Second, is the very matter of these hymn re-writes being under copyright. It smacks of pure profiteering for praise song writers to take a well known and popular hymn, tweak it (often slightly), and then be able to list it as an original work in order to receive royalty payments. Re-writing a popular song is a guaranteed way to get your work attention, it is a bit like rappers that sample in parts of other songs that are easily identifiable (they pay the other artists). The re-working of a hymn is sure to generate a ton of interest, use in worship, and if protected by copyright in your name, a pretty good revenue stream.

Maybe I'm too cynical, but I'd love to see priceless works of art, literary genius, and age old hymns left in a preserved and original state and not re-done for profit. Maybe I'm too idealistic, but I'd like to see our songwriters craft their own classics that can serve the church for 300, 500, or more, years. So here's to history and creativity!

Straight Outta Dimond Estates...the Clash, Rob Bell & a sense of place.

Should I stay or should I go now? 

Should I stay or should I go now?

If I go there will be trouble

An' if I stay it will be double

So come on and let me know

Should I stay or should I go?

- The Clash

I have been thinking about place a lot lately. Part of it has been in relation to the work I'm doing for school - thinking through cities as places and what makes a city. But more acutely I/we have been thinking about my/our physical place in this world. Nine years ago, armed with little more than good intentions, my family and I moved into Dimond Estates trailer park. As I woke up every day that summer my mind would flood with the thought "Crap, I live in a trailer park."  Something about moving into a home that has wheels and a title filed with the Department of Motor Vehicles brought me face to face with some basis and feelings I didn't know had woven into my psyche.

Over the years I learned to love our neighborhood. It is a multi-cultural urban environment tucked away in South Anchorage's commercial district (a seemingly endless landscape of strip malls). On the other hand the park is a ramshackle collection of over 500 units of mostly sub-standard housing. There in lies the battle of place that has been raging inside of me. I love my neighborhood but I have developed a disdain for my house.

Starting last fall, when a broken shower fitting leaked water all over our bedroom and enhanced by a broken sewer line this spring, a discussion has been ongoing about moving into a new house. Our youngest daughter, who can't remember living anywhere else, has repeatedly stated that the trailer is home while my wife endlessly browsed for a new home on the Internet.  Meanwhile I became the living embodiment of The Clash's song Should I Stay, Or Should I Go?

Nearly two weeks ago we looked at a house (this was the only house I personally have been interested in during this entire process due to the fact the Anchorage is LOADED with UGLY homes that cost a TON of money). The house was one of the 10 oldest homes in Anchorage. Built in 1914 to house government employees that had been brought to Anchorage (fresh off their work building the Panama Canal) by the federal government to build the Alaska Railroad. The house was awesome! A cute 960 square foot, two story, house on the bluff above Ship Creek in the oldest neighborhood in Anchorage.  My historian side was alive, but my practical side won out. We simply could not move 5 people into that tiny house after living in our palatial 1300 square foot double wide (450 square feet ends up being a lot). So in the end that dream died.

This past Monday night I went for a run.  As I stepped out the door I clicked on the newest episode of Rob Bell's (1) Podcast - The Rob Cast - as my workout soundtrack.  Rob was talking about being from where you are.  He was unpacking the idea of loving the place you are in, and if not moving.  It was a version of the struggle my soul has been engaged in for nearly a year.  As I ran, and listened, I was washed over with the feeling that our 1973 Kentwood doublewide is still home.  I was baptized into the idea that we can stay - we can continue - we can love the place we are from.  

Facebook this week has been loaded with images like the one above generated by a website promoting the upcoming movie Straight Out Of Compton and Beats Audio.  I've seen a good many friends generate images declaring their pride in place.  So I guess, in the end, what I'm trying to say is that I'm straight outta Dimond Estates...


(1)  Ok, I know I just lost a bunch of readers right there because I mentioned Rob Bell.  I'm coming out of the closet.  I like Rob Bell.  I'm not interested in debating Rob's theology (especially with those who have not read his books - in particular "Love Wins") with anyone so I won't be responding to comments posted about that.  

I have learned a great deal from Rob over the years.  At points in my life his teaching has rescued me from despair and given me hope, and frankly isn't that is what pastors/teachers/preachers are supposed to do?  So I said it, I like Rob Bell.