In God’s Country

I have been a cyclist for a long time – 20+ years. In fact, when my red LeMond Ventoux was destroyed in a crash, it was a major life event.

I love riding on the road at 22 MPH, decending hills at 34 MPH, and climbing up long winding roads at 12 MPH. Something about road riding is therapeutic. I can just switch off my brian and let my legs take over.

Yesterday I did something different; I went mountain biking in Mission Trails Park. Man…I had no idea.

I bought a mountain bike off of Craig’s list last autumn because I wanted to continue commuting in to DC during the winter. Mountain bikes are heavier, and have wider tires so that riding in wet weather is a little less dangerous than a road bike. Also, they are slower and that matters when the tempurature is low and the wind is an enemy.

Upon moving to San Diego and experiencing Mission Trails Park literally 3 or 4 blocks up the street from my parent’s house, my use for the mountain bike went from winter commuting to really mountain biking. I shipped it with me on my last flight back from VA to SD, replaced the slicks with knobby tires and though “Oh, this will be a fun diversion.” Right.

First of all, unpaved roads are much steeper (thank God for the triple chainring) and the gravel/rocks/sand don’t like to stay in place as the bike rattles over. Mountain biking has this whole other dimension called ‘technical’ like how to shift your wieght when riding up an the face of a cliff so your front tire dosn’t lift off the trial and you end up on your butt. Or how to decend a steep downhill with rocks the size of softballs slipping and rolling from under the bike. There is even a technique to falling off your bike – I havn’t perfected it yet. I’m two rides for two instances of blood somehow escaping my body.

All this technical stuff means your can’t turn off your brain when mountain biking. Not for a second. My brain was making millions of calculations a second trying to decide which line to take, how fast to go, and how much brake to give without launcing myself into a cactus. Whew! I mean, my brain can barely do ten calculations a minute – this was sheer panic.

And the unsaid part is that the whole time I’m steering around rocks and ditches and bumps. It was if I was tap dancing around these big rocks while being forced by gravity to go faster than I feel is humanly possible. Even on the uphills, when gravity is working against you, I’m turning my front wheel this way and that way to maintain the most obstical free route and keeping my direction on the most solid part of the trail.

Yes its hard and dangerous but what a rush!

My level of respect for mountain bikers just jumped ten points. And mountain bike racers — you gotta be kidding that someone would do this for time not just survival?

This isn’t me…

My wife will tell you I got a thing about noise. I don’t like certain sounds – especially fans.

I don’t mind fans and their ability to move air. It’s that constant monotonous whirring noise that grates on me. It is absolutely unecessary.

I don’t like the sound of oscilating fans and I hate the fan on in the car. Position one is OK when the temperature needs some immediate cooling. But no human really needs position four or five on the fan control. Roll down the window. (I would but I don’t like that noise either.)

The fans I hate most of all are bathroom fans. Bathrooms are supposed to be mini chambers of privacy, seclusion and tranquility. I appreciate that some homes have a switch to turn on the light and a switch to turn on the fan. I never hit the fan switch.

If you have to turn on the fan to take care of the steam from the shower, you need to put a window in that bathroom. Such a bathroom without a window is what my dear wife would call “Cambodian.”

So it’s particulary ironic that, as I am temporarily living with my parents, their house has the noisiest bathroom fans in the world. I can tell anytime my folks are using the facilities by the roar of those aweful fans. I unplugged the fan in the bathroom I use just to keep my sanity.

The fans are not just ‘gosh, I can really notice the bathoom fan is on’ noisy. They are more like ‘industial warehouse where all employees wear ear plugs’ noisy.

How is it that my folks can stand it? I think it is the same with all things: these are just things people get used to and never have a thought about. Their lives are not as sentitive as mine to fan noises and, as far as I can tell, their lives are also not as sensitive about keeping the refrigerator clean. So I cleaned it today.

I am giving anyone who reads this license to point out the noisy fans in my life of which I am totally oblivious.

Problem

Problem Solved

I stole this from my friend Stephanie’s page.  A great example with what is wrong w/ the Evangelical subculture.  Oh, it takes a while to load but be patient…it is a virtue after all…

Recently I have been reading the Old Testament in The Message version of the Bible. I really like it because I can understand it a little better than other versions.

I think the Old Testament demonstrates that God continues to love us even though we as people basically reject God’s power, love and mercy at every opportunity. But the Old Testament also demonstrates that you shouldn’t take lightly what you say to God. I mean in Judges 11, Jephthah vows “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the LORD’S, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
How would Jephthah have known that his daughter would come out of his door to welcome her victorious father? The Bible says that “Jephthah did as he vowed.” This wasn’t a curse, but it seems that God took the keeping of the vow seriously so I can only imagine how God might treat an outright curse.
Today, people curse God a lot. I am not sure what happens in the spiritual world when people are so bold as to curse God but I assume that something happens. I kinda wonder if there is some kind of energy that is stored up and released at some point.

Here is an example: My dad’s favorit curse id God @#%& it. He says it all the time. When he’s wathing the news, when he reads the mail, when he disagrees with something. I wonder if God takes him at his word. I dunno. Just a thought.

My mom is an environmentalist.  She is 83 years old and hates throwing anything away.  She re-uses paper towels.  She can’t bear to toss burned pancakes.  The drawers in her kitchen are filled with old tupperware, plastic bags, and even tin foil.

“You never know,” she says, “I might be able to use this later.”

Mom once read an article that stated that plastic milk jugs and grocery bags are recycled into ladies underwear.  I think she meant rayon or some kinds of man-made fabric. I teased her and suggested that maybe she should skip a few steps and just wear the plastic bags.  She looked confused.

Mom is not a tree-hugger or enviro-wacko.  She is super frugile and consciencious.  Instead of throwing something in the trash, she throws old food in the yard so the birds can eat it. Once she put a tray of lemons that came off her lemon tree on the sidewalk of her quiet cul-de-sac in hopes that a passer-by would benefit from her hospitality.  She doesn’t understand that nearly everyone in San Diego has a lemon tree and how anyone could throw away perfectly good lemons.

Instead of a Seirra Club member who lobbies for abortion rights because it thinks people are bad and animals are good, Mom is a survivor of the Great Depression.  She’s a conservative who looks forward to recycling day because she believes that she is helping prevent waste.  That’s a good thing.  I like that kind of environmentalism.

One of the nice things about being asked to speak is that often the host organization will give you tokens of their appreciation.  World Vision gave me a very thoughtful gift bag with an orange t-shirt with the word “Orphan” across the chest as a way to raise awareness of the millions of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

WV also gave me a coffee mug, a hand-made bookmark, and some books.  I read In The Name of Jesus, Henry Nouwen on the plane home and it really spoke to me.

Henry Nouwen was a Catholic theologian who taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard universities.  He left his position at Harvard to minister to mentally retarded individuals in Toronto, Canada at a place called L’Arche.  That experience, writes Nouwen, profoundly affected his sense of relationship with God and his sense of ministry.

He describes three sets of temptations, their biblical counterparts, and spiritual disciplines that help us counter each temptation and respond in a godly way.  He illustrates these thoughts with the three temptations of Christ.  Here is a quick summary of Nouwen’s teaching:

Counter the temptation to be relevant, by seeking the heart of God.  Do this by developing the discipline of contemplative prayer; practicing the presence of God.  Christ was tempted to be relevant by the challenge to turn stones into bread.  He responded with a call to be intimate with God through the Word.

Counter the temptation of competence and individualism, by seeking emptiness and community.  Do this by developing the discipline of confession and forgiveness; loving one another and being open to receive love by exposing our wounded selves and receiving the healing power of the Body of Christ.  Christ was tempted to be a hero.  He responded with humility.

Counter the temptation of control and power, by seeking intimacy and love by developing the discipline of theological reflection; allowing God to sensitize us and lead us into circumstances where His love needs to be proclaimed.  Jesus last temptation was power.  He responded by accepting the way of the cross.

The message of In The Name of Jesus is particularly significant to me.  Having transitioned from working on Capitol Hill – where the desire for relevant, competence, personal success, control and power are all huge.  In my new capacity in San Diego, the pace, intensity and pressure are all different allowing me to consider where God is leading me.

If this sounds like a familiar struggle, I recommend you give In The Name of Jesus a read.  It’s eighty pages are packed with spiritual insight.

I spent this weekend at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana.  I spoke at some breakout sessions at World Vision’s Acting On AIDS student summit.  It was a great time.

World Vision just plain old has great staff.  Jackie and James had everything under control and went out of their way to make me happy.  I also met Dr. Milton Amayun who is working to coordinate faith-based treatment and care efforts in Africa through Christian Connections for International Health.

It snowed all day on Saturday and I was very happy I wore my wool pants.  Particularly since I won’t have much occaison to wear them in San Diego.

Tom Walsh and I conducted two sessions on how the President’s Emergency Plan For HIV Releif (PEPFAR) became law and how it is working.  It was a great time.  There were lots of Taylor student and Seattle Pacific University students.  There were also some students from school with which I was not familiar.  We had fun making fun of Tom and his Jeopardy champ status at lunch.  I also got to present by myself about my perspective on transforming communities and the limits of public policy.

Bob Z, Laura and I took some time off at Payne’s – very cool place to have coffee, ice cream and treats.  As you drive up to Payne’s, it’s just a little box with no character.  The sign outside just says “EAT – Coffee”  But inside it’s leather sofas and cool atmosphere creates a very relaxing and kinda upscale place to hang out in the middle of who knows where, Indiana.

That night, Laura B, Princess Zulu, Scott Erickson and I were driven down to Indianapolis so we wouldn’t have to wake up so early for the 1 and a half hour drive from Taylor.  We hung out in the hot tub and Scott and I swapped some music – oh, that was great.  I had a great sleep but, because I misread my intinerary, I missed my flight.  I was fortunate to be able to catch a later one and only miss half of the Super Bowl.

The San Diego Union Tribune features a story about how pharmaceutical companies are expected to make big profits due to the new Medicare Part D program. I just don’t get it and think their economic logic is faulty.

Here is their rationale: Drug companies who must sell medicine under Medicare’s price controls will make huge “surplus” profits once these price controls are lifted. So, any extra money outside of price controls are “excess profits”? This sounds like communism.

The point of Medicare reforms are to re-introduce competition of the marketplace and improve the health of the health care market. They are also meant to improve quality and service to Medicare beneficiaries. Without these market-based reforms, the Medicare program will suffer an expensive and painful death.

Liberal economics can also be seen in the way that the stories about Exxon-Mobile’s profit reports have been reported. They write that record profits are being made at the expense of union workers and the American consumer. But the fact is that any large oil corporation holds tons of oil reserves. Without these reserves, gas stations would run out of gas more often. When the market price of oil increases, the holders of any oil will make money – no one is being gouged by these profits, it’s just the way the market works.

I guess we are marching closer and closer to a socialist economy when profits and market economics become scary rhetoric.

Tomorrow I leave for Taylor University in Indiana to speak in a couple of workshops at World Vision’s Acting On AIDS Student Summit.  I am pretty excited about this because it will be the first time I can really speak my mind about some topics without having to be worried about how it might affect federal legislation.  Also, World Vision is an awesome organization and I expect to have a great time.

I will be speaking on International HIV/AIDS policy along with Tom Walsh who is a brilliant fellow and works in the Global AIDS Coordinator’s office.  I hope to relay some of the developments that occurred when the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief was considered in Congress.  During deliberation of that bill, I successfully included a subsection defining prevention programs.  That was exciting.

My second workshop will be about the nexus of public policy and transforming communities. I hope to convey what I believe to be true that real transformation can only occurr when people are intimate with one another on a community level and that for true intimacy to exist, Jesus Christ must be in the mix.  Therefore, when the Children of the Most High are involved, it stands to reason that those projects/communities would be the most effective and have the greatest impacts.

Please consider lifting this conference and my presentations up in prayer.

Stay tuned for photos.