Gutenbergers and Googlers

Posted April 17, 2012 by wordsfromww
Categories: Christianity, Faith, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                   April 17, 2012

Recently I was cooking steaks on the outdoor grill. The problem was that it was dark outside (that often happens at night!), and our deck light wasn’t giving me much help. The flames from the gas grill brought some light…to the bottom side of the steaks…but when light shines towards you it does nothing to reveal what the object looks like on the side you can see.

Carol saw my quandary, and she comes outside with her cell phone.

“Hey! I need more light, not a Sprint techie!”

She then turns her cell phone into a flashlight and instantly reveals that the steaks need some more time.

“What?”

It’s getting more and more amazing what kind of apps you can get for your cell phone. At Starbucks there is a free app card each week. You just take the card, enter in the code on your iTunes account, and download the app to your phone. I can now play Scrabble, Angry Birds, watch a movie, read a book, check the news, and text all my “friends” to let them know I’m drinking a cup of Italian Roast.

The point is that we are in a crunch period in the church between two cultures, the Gutenbergers and the Googlers. Leonard Sweet, in his new book Viral: How Social Networking Is Poised to Ignite Revival, makes some clear distinctions between the two separated generations. “Gutenbergers” are “into the word.” No, I’m not talking about the Bible, although they do use it. I’m talking about the printed text, the hard copy.

Googlers are into TGIF! If you just translated those capital letters with the phrase “Thank God Its Friday!”, you are probably a “Gutenberger.” If you filled in the blanks of T_G_I_F_ with “Text, Google, iPhone, and Facebook” you are probably more of a “Googler.”

If the pastor says to look up Mark 2:21-23 and you reach for the Bible in the pew rack you’re most likely a Gutenberger. If you reach for your cell phone you are either a Googler, or trying to become one.

The challenge for “the church” is to realize that the Ephesians 4 passage about there being ‘one body and one Spirit” is a call to not cultural division, but the treasuring of different people in different place with different perspectives and different journeys…but one Lord!

“Gutenbergers” tend to be pushier and more determined. Worship services become turf wars about music and length and dress styles. But “Gutenbergers” are also resilient and persistent. “Googlers” tend to need others to get them through, to journey with them. “Gutenbergers” have a “John Wayne” trait.

“Gutenbergers” view the constant texting of “Googlers” as needless drivel and a sign of idle hands with nothing to do. “Googlers” see “text” as a verb and a crucial part of deepening relationships. It is the equivalent of my Uncle Milliard sitting on a bench with some other men in front of the county courthouse on a summer afternoon, in terms of us kids at the time, “Not doing anything!” The difference is that “Googlers” can “sit” with any of their friends at any moment even though they are separated by thousands of miles.

The point is that both cultures need each other. The first group that has a tendency to say “We were here first!” needs to hear . . . really hear the second group’s response “We are here now.” Exclamation mark ends the first group’s sentence, but a simple period finishes the second group’s response.

The alternative is to keep the two cultures separate and allow the fear to build . . . to build suspicions about each other . . . and become convinced that neither “Gutenbergers” nor “Googlers” can learn anything from one another.

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Feeding Mom

Posted April 16, 2012 by wordsfromww
Categories: Christianity, Faith, Parenting, Uncategorized
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                    April 16, 2012

 

Parents treasure many different experiences with their kids. Taking them for an unplanned ice cream cone…school class field trips to the zoo…teaching the son how to properly tie a necktie.

The heart memories differ with each parent, and with each child of the parent.

When it comes to the final days of one of your parents there is a whole new collection of shared experiences that are valued, although painful.

I’m back in Ohio for a couple of weeks to spend time with my mom and dad. My mom is pretty much confined to her bed. Yesterday she was up in her wheelchair for three hours, which was the only time she had been out of bed since the previous Sunday. She has a form of Parkinson’s that has gradually eroded her mental functioning, verbalizing, and comprehension.

There is no “getting over it” in this lifetime. It isn’t a virus bug that a pill and rest can take care of.

It just is!

There isn’t much I can do, just be. One thing, however, that I do is feed Mom dinner each night. She has lost the use of her hands, so I scoot the broccoli on to the fork (Always with a bit of ranch dressing on top of it! Wait a minute! We never got ranch dressing for our broccoli!) I coax her into taking a drink  of juice with a straw. I spear a cut-up piece of chicken breast and hope that she will bite it off of the fork.

But something else precious and extraordinary has been happening as I feed Mom dinner. I’ve been going back and retelling her stories from the past, from when we lived beside Lexington Road in Winchester, Kentucky, and we had friend chicken one night. I said to Dad, “That was good fried chicken, Daddy!”

“I’m glad you liked it, and now I can tell you that it wasn’t fried chicken.”

“It wasn’t! It tasted like fried chicken. What was it…a turkey with short legs?”

“Rabbit!”

My mind: “Fluffy!”

It takes Mom about an hour to eat dinner eat night, so we relive a lot of the old experiences.

“Mom, remember when we had a dog? What was his name? Buster?

She every so slightly shakes her head no. I’m sure his name was Buster.

“Remember when Dad would turn Buster over on his back and slide him across the kitchen linoleum floor? And then Buster would get back on his feet and come back for more.”

A blank look. Later on that evening when I ask Dad if the dog’s name was Buster he tells me “No, it was Butch!”

Mom knew, although she couldn’t verbalize it.

Each fork of food is ripe with some other discovery.

“Remember when Mamaw and Papaw would take us kids on a summer evening in the back of his truck to the place down the road that served ice cream cones?”

Two eyes gaze at me for several moments, but… nothing.

“What was the name of that place? Salyer’s?”

The slight nod of correction again. The name goes undiscovered until I talk to my dad later, but…as my mom’s nod of no indicated, it wasn’t Salyer’s.

There are even special touches of God upon our lives in the acts that we would prefer to never have to do. There are blessings from him even in the midst of the parts of life that we dread. As my mom slowly loses ground there are moments of connection and conversation that will stand out for the rest of my life.

I often read Romans 8:26-28 with a grimace. Feeding Mom has given me a glimpse of a new meaning in the same words. In The Message its rendered “Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”

With an ache in my heart, but a longing in my soul, I look forward to what we’ll recall tonight. Perhaps it will deal with beets and turnips, or bow ties, or the time she caught me sneaking back from a place that she had specifically forbidden me to go. If I go “there”, I’m wondering if I’ll get the raised eyebrows look that let’s me know she remembers!

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Forgetting Our Purpose, But Remembering Our Cell Phone

Posted April 15, 2012 by wordsfromww
Categories: Christianity, Faith, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                                         April 15, 2012

 

Many people think I’m clueless…and I am in some respects! Without guidance from my wife my colorblindness can cause the reactions around me to non-verbally communicate “What was he thinking?” And there have been other times when a “thank you” to Carol for the dinner she has just cooked would have been appreciated, but I cluelessly sat there like a “man stone”- word-less!

So I admit my cluelessness. One time I even walked through an airport terminal unzipped before my friend may mention of an open barn door. When your “openness” is suddenly revealed it causes you to think about all the smiles and grins you have just received in the last five minutes.

But…there are other things I’m pretty observant of. In recent times I’ve noticed the attitude and attentiveness of workers in restaurants and business establishments. It might go to the fact that I just read Patrick Lencioni’s book The Three Signs Of A Miserable Job.

Sometimes the customer seems to be an inconvenience. A couple of weeks ago Carol and I took our daughters and grand kids to Dairy Queen. I like Dairy Queen. Years ago my Aunt Irene bought me my first foot-long hot dog there, plus my first banana split. Unfortunately, they were during the same meal and I just about split my tummy trying to eat both items. My Uncle Milliard, who was married to my Aunt Irene, bought a Dairy Queen for a few months, and just as quickly sold it because the fourteen hour days were killing him. He knew it was time to sell when one day he looked out at the long line of customers and yelled “Doesn’t anyone eat at home anymore?” Although in question form, it was not really a question!

Back to my recent DQ stew! The young man who took our order seemed to be more interested in one of the young ladies who was working the drive-thru lane than he was in the guy with the twenty dollar bill in his hand. We ordered, and all of our order came…except one item! Mine! My Peanut Butter Bash…missing in action!

I was patient, waiting to the side as other customers placed their orders…and then received…and then left. As I waited I noticed the young man’s cell phone placed right next to the register, and every twenty seconds or so he would receive a text from someone who was obviously more important then me. And he would respond to it.

My clueless side was not so pronounced that I thought to myself “Wow! People can text their orders to DQ ahead of time now. That’s pretty neat!”

No, I was just waiting for my Peanut Butter Bash, which I will never ever order again!

Finally, I got Employee X’s attention and told him that I hadn’t received part of our order. He asked me what I was waiting on, and I told him “Peanut Butter Bash”, which when you think of it, sounds kind of stupid. In fact, as I told him I almost felt immature, like ordering a kids’s meal when I’m old enough to order off of the Senior Menu.

In about 30 seconds he put the PBB in front of me with no “Sorry about that”, or “My bad!”…just put it right there and checked his cell phone again.

How often it seems that we forget our purpose for being where we are, and for what we’re doing. We just put in the time in a lackluster manner, making no impact and giving minimal attention and effort.

Could it be that the church needs to learn from the DQ guy? That being the hands and feet of Jesus to a person who is in the midst of a listening ear is more important than the text from Howdy Doody saying “Hey?”

Just saying…could it be that we sometimes just put the time in…without thinking how our attentiveness could be a connecting link in someone’s life transformation experience? Perhaps reducing the times of cluelessness might result from a more attentiveness to the whisper of the Spirit.

 

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Playing Big With Little People

Posted April 15, 2012 by wordsfromww
Categories: Christianity, Faith, Parenting, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                      April 15, 2012

Saturday morning I was at the soccer game that the daughter of my nephew was playing in. She’s in third grade, which translated means that most of the parents there had cups of Starbucks coffee in their hands, or coffee staying hot in a thermos. (I waited until after the game to go to Starbucks! Willpower!)

Gracie had a great time playing, as did all of the kids. No one had told them yet that “This is serious business…so wipe that smile off your face!”

Meanwhile, something else caught my attention. On the field right behind us a game involving four year old’s was taking place. One of the coaches was an African-American man who was so big he looked by a tree house that the kids could climb on. I’m guessing…and I believe I’m quite accurate on this one…that he played football. He was so big that he could have played Right Guard…and Left Guard …on the same play.

And he was having a ball! And because he was having a ball the players on both teams were having a ball! One time I looked over and he was dangling a young boy upside down. I’m not even sure it was a player on his own team, but the boy was laughing and in a moment of “life delight!”

The coach congratulated and high-fived players on both teams. He helped little girls who tripped back on their feet. He shouted encouragement.

He played big with the little people. He inspired me!

As a coach I get the tremendous privilege of influencing young people, helping them improve their skills, learn from their mistakes, mentor them in life lessons through the lens of a game. I fan the flame of their passion for the game, while not losing sight of their youthfulness.

Although I’m not as big as the soccer coach of the four year old’s, in some ways I get to play big with the little people. I get to guide them in having fun.

In the youth sports culture we’ve lost most of that.

Like the coach who has his sixth grade girls’ basketball team press their opponents full-court even though they are up by thirty at the start of the fourth quarter.

Or the coach who plays his main group and then when, because of a mandatory league rule, he puts the last kid on the bench in to pinch hit, he commands him not to swing at any pitch because the player never makes contact. He robs him of the sound of a baseball meeting wood, because he’s short-sighted.

Or the coach who had no success as an athlete growing up, so he’s going to win at any cost with the youth team he’s coaching now.

Or the two coaches who get into a fight after the game in front of their players, who all stand there with mouths wide open in shock.

The list could go on for pages. Somewhere and at sometime we lost the thrill and sheer joy of playing big with the little people.

The joy of playing children is a sign of the blessing of God upon Jerusalem in the Old Testament book of Zechariah (chapter 8). In The Message paraphrase of Zechariah 8:4 it says, “And boys and girls will fill the public parks, laughing and playing- a good city to grow up in.”

I love that! I pray that we regain that scene.

I hope I run into “the man child” again at the next soccer outing. I’m going to tell him how he inspired me, how he brought a smile to my face, how his “playing big” brought a little glimpse of God’s delight!

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The Three Sheds

Posted April 14, 2012 by wordsfromww
Categories: Christianity, Faith, The Church, Uncategorized
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                  April 14, 2012

 

Once upon a time there was a church with three sheds behind it. One day a couple of thieves thought “We need money, and there’s three sheds behind that church. Let’s break into one of them and steal some cool stuff. Sheds behind churches are easy pickings!”

So they waited until they thought no one was around and they broke into the nicest and newest of the three sheds. They broke the lock off, swung the door open, and started squealing with delight as they were about to open the door. But when they opened the door they discovered that the nicest and newest of the sheds belonged to the Boy Scout troop that the church sponsored, and inside the shed there were only some boxes of scouting manuals, some badges in bags, a couple of flag holders, a coat rack with scout shirts hanging from it, and some folding card tables.

The thieves were disappointed, but they thought “Oh well! There’s two other sheds. We don’t need this one!”

They moved on to the oldest of the sheds, the one that looked like it was in the worst shape. They still had not sensed that anyone was in the vicinity so they clipped the lock off of the oldest shed. Perhaps it would have a good snowplower, or a riding lawn mower, or even a gas-powered leaf blower.

But, once again, when they swung the door open they discovered a stack of old and heavy wooden tables, a mower that looked like it had been around since the Civil War, a weed whacker broken into three pieces, and a yard rake that was missing several of its teeth.

Not only that, but the thieves got smeared with cobwebs!

On to Shed #3! It was the largest of the sheds…in other words, the one that could hold the most treasures! It was the most difficult to get the lock broken off of because the door had gotten a little warped, but with some effort they finally broke it free. When the door swung open they held their breath.

But, alas! Inside the largest of the three sheds were several stacks of metal folding chairs, boxes of old hymnals, choir robes, a twelve foot ladder, folding risers, long tubes that were unrecognizeable, and an old heavy wooden podium. There was even a couple of folding signs. One that said “Rummage Sale Today!” and another one that said “Craft Bizarre Inside!”

One of the thieves looked at the other and said, “This is no fair! We’ve broken into three sheds and haven’t found anything that is worth stealing! Doesn’t this church have anything of value?”

“Come on, let’s go before we get caught!”

And so the two thieves crept slowly away, never to be caught, but also leaving with empty hands…for you see what the church has that is valuable is not in anything material, but rather in a message. Oddly enough, the message is free for the taking, but was costly to purchase.

The most valuable thing that a church has does not involve bricks or mortar, or sculptured creations, but rather a story about another man who died between two other thieves. Neither of those thieves escaped, and yet one of them, if you believe the gospel story, found something of eternal value.

 

*The three sheds behind our church were broken into this week. The above story is true except for the “Craft Bizarre” sign. Nothing of value was taken from any of the sheds, because…there was nothing of value in them to begin with. Our only disappointment is that they didn’t take the mower and the boxes of old hymnals.

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Spiritually Re-Hydrating

Posted April 13, 2012 by wordsfromww
Categories: Christianity, Faith, The Church
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It’s been a tough winter! The extreme dryness of Colorado has been a killer on my skin. Some mornings when I get up and look in the mirror I look like a cast member of “The Walking Dead.” Brutal!

I’m going through Chapstick like butterscotch candies. I rub on lip balm so much that I have a glaze on my finger now.

Dry, baby! Yes, I know that the excessive amount of Starbucks coffee I drink doesn’t help…but…I…I’m a coffee snob…and a creature of the caffeinated habit.

So now I’m back in Ohio visiting family…and getting re-hydrated! Being within a stone’s throw of the Ohio River is a sign of the “wetness” of the air around here. I haven’t had to make a “Sam’s Club run” for a case of Burt’s Bees since I got here. The vampire look is disappearing from my face. A few more days and I might even look normal! Okay…maybe not!

There is, however, a parallel between being in the spiritual desert for so long that a period of spiritual re-hydrating is the Great Physician’s remedy.

It is not coincidental that King David talked to the Lord about being led  beside quiet waters and laying down in lush green pastures. There are periods in our lives where, spiritually speaking, we need to dangle our feet in a stream and cut some blades of green grass with our fingers.

There are times when we must admit that our lips are parched from too much talking, and not much listening for the whisper of the Spirit. In a different Psalm (the 63rd) David said:

“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water.” (Psalm 63:1)

David wrote those words as he was in the desert of Judah. It was a time of drought…for him.

Spiritual drought doesn’t suddenly smack us in the face like a Colorado hail storms as you’re out for a walk. It comes gradually, slowly, and then it occurs to you that you are parched, that your upper lip is almost chapped. It’s time for the thirst to be quenched, not in one big guzzling, but rather with a long slow watering.

A few years ago Nestea sold a lot of iced tea by having a guy fall willingly backwards into a swimming pool. Many of us rushed to the frig to get a glass because the visual was so effective. In our churches, a similar visual involves the dipping of a new believer into the waters of baptism. There is a congregational squeal of delight about the time the new believer arises from the water with wet and messed up hair while sporting a smile.

How well do we plan for periods of spiritual re-hydrating? How well do we look for that lip-smacking moment when our spirit sings, like the Nestea plunge, “Ahhh!”

Like lip balm, we often try to play catch-up instead of planning ahead, reactive instead of proactive. Instead of being in the Word, we search for an answer after the windstorm has hit our lives.

We hope that we’ll learn from the desert. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t!

Like the words of a hymn we sing, “It is well with my soul!” May the Spirit drench us with the presence and delight of the Living Water!

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The Graying of the Matter

Posted April 12, 2012 by wordsfromww
Categories: Faith, Parenting, Uncategorized
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WORDS FROM W.W. April 12, 2012

There is no easy way to growing older. We can talk about getting wiser, but the arthritis often dulls our sense of sharpness. We can talk about maturity, but the increase in the number of pill bottles in our medicine cabinet seems to go with it. We can talk about the glory days of retirement, but the “getting re-tired” every day is a footnote to that page of our life.
And then there is the struggle associated with seeing your parents in the winter of their lives. I’m back in Ohio for a couple of weeks visiting my mom and dad. My mom spent the past five months in a full care center, until my Dad decided he was going to bring her back home and have home health care nurses come each day to provide six to eight hours of care. He and my sister are filling in the gaps. It’s costly, and has its hard moments, but Dad seems to be much happier that his soul mate is back with him at home.
My mom has a form of Parkinson’s that significantly reduces her ability to communicate and to comprehend. This morning she asked me where I stayed last night. I told her the guest bedroom, and she responded “Where’s that at?”
But at other times she seems to mostly understand what is going on!
It is a tough part of many tough elements in the aging process. She is partially with it and partially not with it. Each question…each conversation…each facial expression…carries with it the question…”Is she aware or not aware?”
My mom still gives me “the look”, the look that makes me search back over what I’ve said like a kid who has just unknowingly spilled the beans about a transgression he thought would never have to be revealed. But now “the look” is filled with confusion and disconnection.
In many ways it would be easier if Mom was totally not there or totally there. There would be no guessing and uncertainty. Each moment would be pre-defined.
Her “graying” brings pauses in the conversation. I’m asking myself “Did she understand? Is she searching for a response?”
I noticed during my last visit in December that a couple of the nurses erroneously thought that she had a hearing problem. My mom’s hearing is 20/20! I know that’s a vision calculation, but that’s the best way I can let you know that she hears everything…even when you’re whispering. With the nurses her lack of giving a timely answer was simply due to her trying to connect the dots in her mind.
While I’m here I’m sure that I will have some good, but brief, glimpses of conversation with her, but also some awkward pauses. The awkward pauses will bring me back to my childhood moments when it was best to not say anything and just listen.
And I’ll treasure the moments…the grayness…the uncertainty!

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A Hunger for New Heroes

Posted April 10, 2012 by wordsfromww
Categories: Christianity, Faith, Parenting, The Church, Uncategorized
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                    April 9, 2012

Bubba Watson’s victory in The Master’s golf tournament was impressive. What was even more heartwarming was the media’s telling of his story. Comments in TV rooms around the country could be summed up with “Nice guys finish first!”

In recent times there seems to be a hunger in our culture for heroes. We want to know that there are still good, law-abiding, morally strong, balanced people who we can look up to. It’s gratifying to know that someone like Bubba Watson, and his wife, Angie (who is 6’4”) had just adopted a one month ago boy two weeks before the Master’s. We tend to pull for a guy who just recently experienced the death of his father. It’s satisfying to hear that after winning the Master’s, Bubba said “I’m like to first thank Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.”

The ironic thing is that at the same time we look for heroes we also seem to seek to find the narrow openings in the armor. Witness the recent experience with Tim Tebow. It was un-nerving to a lot of people to see Tebow “tebowing”. It was irritating to a lot of folks to see him give such visible expression to his faith. There were a lot of people who scrutinized deeper then an FBI investigation. There was intense examination for inconsistencies.

My cynical side mutters that there are probably a number of folk who would rather their daughters bring home a Saints “bounty hunter” instead of a humble quarterback, who knows that there is more to life than a few years in professional football.

And Bubba Watson knows that there is more to life then sporting a new green jacket. This coming weekend is another tournament and a new challenge. His hero status will probably diminish..except in the growing stature of his new adopted baby boy.

We like new heroes, but we seem lacking in the grace to keep them there. They quickly fade, but also rapidly fall. For every “man after God’s own heart” there is a King David whose view of reality and what is right gets distorted by his power or position.

The positive result of that is that each of us has Psalm 51 that we can speak.

“Create in a me a pure heart, O Lord!”

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“Following Jesus As A Following Church”

Posted April 5, 2012 by wordsfromww
Categories: Christianity, Faith, The Church, Uncategorized

This week’s Newsweek cover story is written by Andrew Sullivan who questions the validity of the church, while still following Jesus. The article’s title is splashed across the front cover of the magazine: “Forget Church; Follow Jesus”.

Sullivan makes several good points in the article about the politicizing of Christianity by the religious right and liberal left; the fleecing of the TV flocks by tele-evangelists; the institutional nature…and he’s right…to a point! It’s like saying that the molesting of children by Catholic priests is bad, therefore we should do away with all Catholic priests. The sad truthfulness of the first part does not mean the conclusion of the second part should be made.

Creating a “battle” during Holy Week does a lot to sell magazines, and inflame the passions of advocates and opponents. Good marketing strategy, but not necessarily the right course of action. It’s kind of like when I came home from the store last week with a new bottle of salad dressing. If I had been asked, before I could safely stow the bottle in the cupboard, why I bought a new bottle of salad dressing I would have had to reply “Because I went to buy bread!” The bottle of ranch dressing was not connected to buying bread, but it was connected to the reason for the visit to the store in the first place.

It seems to me that the church has lost part of its way, and is in the process of rediscovering it. That rediscovery is intimately connected to the original reason- to be a community of followers of Jesus. Faith is not about forgetting the church. It’s about following Jesus as a church. It’s the interconnected lives sharing stories and experience about their journeys.

That journey as following communities is filled with stumbles, mutterings, and banging into one another; but it’s also filled with deep soul-satisfying discoveries, new life and renewal, and dances out of restored lives.

It takes me back to the order of Benedictine Sisters who live at the spiritual retreat center north of our city. There is such rhythm in the midst of their community that my soul still resonates with the peace I experienced there a year ago.

The church as an institution has Titanic written all over it; but the church as a vessel, a follower-ship,  is steered by the hope of Christ, and the wind of the Spirit.

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The Resurrection Financial Bonanza

Posted March 30, 2012 by wordsfromww
Categories: Christianity, Faith
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WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                         March 30, 2012

There always seems to be an outcry at Christmas-time about the commercialism of the season. Blow-up nativity scenes, houses that are so lit up it requires sun glasses to be able to look at them, crowded mall parking lots…we know the seasonal routine!

Resurrection Sunday…also known as Easter Sunday…which follows closely on the heels of Good Friday…is becoming a financial bonanza as well! My wife went to purchase some new “resurrection eggs” ( a product that comes in an egg carton, and tells the story of the cross and resurrection) at a local Christian supply and gift store and she was started that the price to tell the story of Jesus with a visual aid had risen substantially. Evidently, “rising prices” goes hand-in-hand with Jesus rising from the dead.

I can just imagine Jesus “buying into” Passover; or being a walking example of the Mosaic Law. “Ten Commandments Chain Necklace!” A t-shirt that says “I Am the I Am that I Am Talked About!” That would have gotten some attention. Perhaps a “burning bush” inflatable on the Sea of Galilee beach!

Go into a Christian book store these days and you will be amazed at how many things you can buy that have the words “He has risen!” stamped on them. “He’s alive!” on a t-shirt is a hot seller. Pretty soon the open tomb will come in an inflatable as well; or maybe with a blow-up boulder that can be anchored in the grass of the front lawn.

Why the commercialism of Easter? Could it be that the gap in the midst of our culture between the religious and not-interested; or the “determined” and the “embittered”, is so wide that Christians are going to the next level in terms of displaying our identity?

Not necessarily inflatables for the front yard, but products that offer us a bit of assurance that we’re people of the Way! My cynical nature tells me it’s less about proclaiming the celebration of the Risen Savior, and more about our growing uncertainty as to how to verbally testify who he is, and why we follow him. It’s less threatening to us…me..to buy a picture for my living room of a pile of empty cloths in an open tomb than it is to talk to my neighbor about the hope that I’m experiencing in my life.

And do you know what will happen if enough Christians flock to Christian book stores and buy Easter products?

Walmart will get into the action! I cringe at the thought!

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