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From left to right: IRS IG Russell George, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, and Lois Lerner, Director of Exempt Organizations

Tragedies often unite us. Our hearts break for the people of Oklahoma, and many of us have already donated to charities such as The Red Cross or The Salvation Army in an attempt to help those who are suffering. Compassion for others and unity in suffering are part of why I still believe America is a great country. The greatest country.

Contrast this unity to the political divide that has become a seemingly unbridgeable chasm over the past several years. Pundits both left and right use every possible news story to bash their opponents and support their own agenda. Outrage has divided us, but could outrage unite us? It seems that may be the case.

On Monday, May 23, 2013 Lois Lerner appeared before a House Oversight Committee investigating the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative political groups and made the following statement before invoking her Fifth Amendment rights:

“I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations. And I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.”

I have watched these hearings in disgust. Not only because IRS officials Steven Miller and Douglas Shulman seem to have fallen victims to a sudden case of selective amnesia, but because of their unbridled arrogance and disrespect as they appeared before congress. These people who have the power to ruin your life if they so choose have to audacity to believe they are above the law. Untouchable.  And while it seems the IRS exclusively targeted people with conservative views, outrage comes from both sides of the aisle. Liberals and conservatives can finally unite against a common enemy: the Internal Revenue Service.

Jon Stewart is hardly known for his conservative leaning political views, but I thought he sums up our collective outrage very well here:

I spent a lot less time on social media than I used to. I check my Twitter and Facebook feeds every day, but I don’t spend more than a few minutes on either. More times than not, I get in on the tail end of some controversy which has erupted on Twitter. Such was the case when I began seeing tweets in my timeline from folks coming absolutely UNGLUED in the aftermath of this tweet sent out by Mark Driscoll on Inauguration Day:

You know…

It’s not like Driscoll is known for his tact. This is hardly the first time he’s offended thousands of people. I have to believe he fully expected a huge backlash because of this tweet, and that’s exactly what he got.

There’s more. Much more. If you’re interested, you can read his entire timeline. Shaun King (who has over 31,500 followers and lists “Jesus Follower” on his timeline) later apologized for his language, but stood by his outrage as a result of Driscoll’s tweet. I don’t question for a moment that Mr. King’s outrage was genuine, and I’m sure many others, regardless of their political affiliations, were offended by Mark Driscoll’s tweet.

But seriously, people…

When you go off on someone on such a public forum, you end up looking like a self-righteous attention whore. I’m not trying to single out Shaun King. I’m sure there were plenty of others going off on Driscoll. I just happened to see his tirade because @Learell is in my “Friends” column on Tweetdeck, and when I saw this exchange, it made me curious about what I had missed:

Shaun King doesn’t know Learell from Adam. As far as I know, this is the first interaction either has had with one another. Yet King assumes Learell agreed with what Driscoll said.

Twitter is not the platform for meaningful dialogue about complex issues or passionate debates about politics, religion, or…well…anything.

It’s Twitter, people!

It’s pithy comments of 140 characters or less. The odds of your words being misunderstood and/or taken out of context are pretty high. Those odds go up exponentially when you’re pissed off.

If you’re outraged about something, rather than express your anger in 140 character spurts, get a pen and a notepad, or talk to a real, non-virtual human being about it. Maybe even go so far as to send a private email to the offending party.

If none of this advice sounds reasonable; if you still think your best bet is expressing your righteous anger on social media, might I suggest you examine why that is? Why you feel it so important to share your worst moments intimately with what amounts to a bunch of complete and total strangers who have no right to judge you, but most certainly will?

And while we’re on the subject of social media, can someone please explain to me why you would follow someone you don’t like? Doesn’t living in a fallen world give us plenty to be upset about without going out and looking for reasons to be pissed off?

In the memorable words of Sergeant Hulka…

Lighten up, Francis.

Bill Maher

As of late, I’ve been weaning myself from watching the news. So much of it is bad. So much more of it seems to be opinion rather than actual news. I’ll typically turn the national news on for a few minutes in the morning just to catch anything of major importance then turn the tv off, but one evening last week I left it on. The talking heads on Fox New’s Hannity show were little more than background static as I was doing laundry. However I did hear something that caught my attention.

The topic of conversation was whether a Political Action Committee (PAC) for the reelection of Barak Obama should return a million dollar donation received from Bill Maher. In case you’ve never heard of Bill Maher, he is (or was at one time) a comedian who has hosted a show called Politically Incorrect and more recently Real Time with Bill Maher. He makes no secret of his hatred of conservatives (particularly conservative women) and Christianity. He seems to take particular delight in bashing Sarah Palin, calling her a “dumb twat” and the “C” word. He has also made disparaging remarks about her children.

This donation was made shortly after another controversy erupted because conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh referred to Georgetown University Law Student Sandra Fluke as “a slut” after she testified in front of a congressional panel about free birth control. Limbaugh later apologized for his remarks. I have heard of no such apologies from Maher:

From the American Spectator:

Consider how Maher bragged that he could get away with what he said because he is on HBO while Rush is at the mercy of commercial sponsors. This surely sounds like a man who has been granted dispensation from the highest authority.

After all, it was with great fanfare last month that Maher donated $1 million to Priorities USA Action, an Obama Super PAC. As the large check was being hauled out on stage, Maher said to his audience at Yahoo headquarters in Silicon Valley, “I think Mitt Romney’s going to get the (Republican) nomination, and then I hope Obama beats him like a runaway sister-wife.”

I suppose I could rant incessantly about how there’s a double standard when it comes to hate speech; about how it’s okay to attack certain groups and not others; about how if you call yourself a comedian you can attempt to dehumanize anyone who disagrees with your political views. But that’s not the intent of this post.

What caught my attention on Hannity was when Hugh Hewitt described Bill Mayer as the “Gollum of American politics”.

“Of course not everyone knows the story of Gollum or how he came to be the shriveled, desiccated horror that he was throughout Lord of the Rings, and how the desire for power had consumed him from within. Bill Maher’s desire is to be noticed, and especially to be taken seriously as a political and social commentator.” – Hugh Hewitt

And despite the fact that I’ve used most of this post to describe the actions of Bill Maher, that’s not the intent of this post either.

It’s easy to sit in judgement of others. Trust me, I know from experience. But doing so may very well lead us down a similar path as Gollum. If we spend our time and energy being angry at the words and actions or even the inactions of others, we are in danger of being consumed by that anger. It spills out into other areas of our lives, onto other people in our lives. Whether it’s distaste with the political climate, our jobs, our personal relationships or dissatisfaction with life in general, we need to seek out what’s good in life and be grateful, lest all the bad blind us to it forever.

As my friend Jake Lee might say, Life’s too short to waste it being a grumpy ho.

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Though my workdays are normally filled with all the commotion and stress that a thousand college students can generate, the days between June and mid-August are mine alone to enjoy. It’s only slightly ironic and more than a little unexpected to me that summer break means even more to me now than it did when I was in school, but it’s true. Never let it be said that a little separation between yourself and others is a bad thing.

Despite the fact I have plenty to keep myself busy, I also have plenty of time to myself. Time that will be spent writing. Which is what I tried to do just a bit ago, and with unfortunate results.

I had just started typing when the buzzing began. First in one ear and then the other and then back again. My right thumb punched downward on the space bar and trampolined my hand upward, waving through the air.

“Stupid fly,” I muttered.

The buzzing returned, and this time the fly actually bounced itself off my head. More waving. More missing. Then the creature circled around and landed right on top of my computer screen, staring at me.

Black, juicy one. Hairy legs and monstrous eyes. And a wingspan that seemed almost unnatural.

Where it had been and how it had gotten into my office escaped me, and I really didn’t care. All that mattered was that I went back to work. I shooed it away and went back to my typing.

SMACK!

Against my head again.

I wheeled my chair around and swiped at it, missing the fly but not the stack of books on the opposite table, all of which tumbled to the floor.

SMACK!

“Dang it, you come back HERE!,” I yelled. “I’m gonna KILL YOU!!”

I roamed around my office for the next five minutes. Found nothing, of course. No buzzing, and no kamikaze attacks. So I sat back down and started writing. Four paragraphs later,

SMACK!

And then after that SMACK!, it stuck. To my head. And I swear, I swear to you, that fly made a beeline toward my ear. I was convinced it was going to burrow in and eat my brain.

I jumped up, slapping at my head and flailing my arms in every direction. The fly somehow managed to retreat back to whatever hell it came from and left me alone. For the moment.

But I knew it would be back. Oh yes, I knew. Which is why I put on my cowboy hat (to prevent any future burrowing) and started to fake type.

Two minutes later, buzzing again. And just at that moment I transformed myself into some strange Jedi/Mr. Miyagi/redneck hybrid, sliced through the air with an open palm—

—and connected.

The fly tumbled backward through the air and crashed against the far wall.

That was five minutes ago.

I’m back at my computer now. Order has been restored. But now I’m suffering through the fits and stops of trying to write, because every sentence I’m trying to type is interrupted by more buzzing.

The fly is still alive, though just barely.

It managed to right itself a bit ago by flopping back onto its legs, but it can’t do much else. Every attempt to take to flight has been both paltry and meaningless.

And now I feel guilty.

There are certain religious adherents who would say I sinned a bit ago, that every creature is worthy of respect and life and that by denying those things to them I deny them to myself. Others would say the sin was letting both haste and anger lead me to do something I now regret.

I suppose a sort of atonement is called for now, though I’m not sure what the proper course of action is. Should I walk over and euthanize it with my boot. Or should I try to nurse it back to health with small tweezers and bits of rancid meat? I’m not sure.

I am sure of this, though. We can try to model our lives to the Good, to walk straight and never wander, to be our very best selves. And sometimes that will work. But who we truly are deep down in our broken souls will always be there, ready in an instant to bare its teeth.

That is, I suppose, why we are all three people in one—there’s the person we want to be, the person we are, and the person who must daily choose which way to lean.

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at his blog What I Learned Today and follow him on twitter at @BillyCoffey

Angela recently wrote a post about an obnoxious commercial encouraging men to buy personalized teddy bears for their wives or girlfriends (wink, wink!) from the fine folks at the Vermont teddy bear company. This post is sort of in the same vein. I want to say for the record that this post has been in my draft file for about a week, so I’m not riding her coattails or anything. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I often get inspiration for posts from other bloggers.) I just wanted to point out that she and I must be on the same wave length. Which is super duper cool for me, but probably a bit unsettling for her. (For the record, that commercial also makes me wants to make me throw up.)

Actually, in comparison to this next little gem, it only rises to the level of a vurp. (To those of you new to my blog, that means vomit + burp — you’re welcome.) Without further adieu, I give you The Prayer Cross:

There are so many things in this commercial that anger me that I will have to dissect and analyze it a bit at a time:

“Watch as people gaze in amazement as the experience the magic of the prayer cross for the first time.” Errr, magic? Didn’t I read somewhere in the bible that magic is a bad thing?

“Creating not only a magnificent piece of jewelry, but a one of a kind spiritual accessory.” You mean like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? That kind of spiritual accessory? Oh, wait, that’s the Fruits of the Spirit. Everyone knows that it’s really tacky when you wear fruit as an accessory. Nothing at all like this necklace.
“When held up to the light, the entire Lord’s Prayer becomes instantly and almost miraculously visible.” Well, at least they said “almost miraculously”. Don’t want to be stretching the truth or anything.

“Each prayer cross comes with a certificate of authenticity.” Which is reassuring. Because you’d probably go straight to H-E double hockey sticks if you get one of those fake prayer crosses.

“The prayer cross is the perfect way to say Happy Easter or Merry Christmas.” Hmmm…I kind of think the best way to say Merry Christmas is to celebrate the birth of the Savior of the world (the One who left His perfect home in paradise where He sat at the right hand of the Father to die an excrutiating death on the cross for the atonement of our sins) and to give comfort, encouragement and hope to the marginalized in society. You know, like Jesus did. And while the prayer cross is undoubtedly “blingtastic”, If I chose to wear a cross, it would be something simple. Not necessarily made of wood and stained with blood, sweat and tears, but a more humble representation of the ultimate price that was paid at Calvary.

“…and is sure to bring joy and comfort to all who wear it.” I don’t know about you, but wearing a shiny cross made out of genuine Austrian crystals and sterling silver does not bring me joy or comfort. The very idea that a person might believe they can purchase a trinket and it will somehow fill that giant, God-shaped hole their heart is both infuriating and heartbreaking. (Not to mention blasphemous.)

This is just one more thing that feeds into the heretical teachings of the prosperity gospel, leading people to believe that God is for the express purpose of blessing them (instead of the other way around); that your financial status is directly linked to your own personal holiness; that if you are poor or sick or you have lost a loved one and your heart is breaking, it is because you are of little faith. And speaking of well known biblical passages, how do these health and wealth preachers explain the beatitudes? Would someone PLEASE explain to me how you get around that particular passage of scripture?

I know that there are a few pastors who read my blog. (Don’t worry, I won’t turn you in the secret society of holiness.) I am sincerely asking why, with the notable exception of John Piper, more highly visible Christian leaders aren’t speaking out against this blasphemy? I am totally off base with this? Please give me your honest opinion, anonymously or otherwise. Because as far as I’m concerned, the Christian community as a whole should be involved in the spiritual equivalent of roaming the streets in an angry mob with torches and pitchforks to expose these people for who they really are. (In Christian love, of course. Always in love.)

When I picture the Perfect Gift, during communion or simply during quiet time, my concept of beauty looks more like this:

Other terms have been used interchangeably with prosperity theology such as prosperity doctrine, health and wealth, etc. but it is perhaps most commonly referred to as the Prosperity Gospel.

It cannot easily be argued that the Prosperity Gospel is a part of the evangelical movement. Instead, prominent evangelicals reject the teaching as non-evangelical. Furthermore, it is worthy to note that none of the major Prosperity Gospel proponents belong to well-established evangelical organizations such as the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability or the National Association of Evangelicals

The Prosperity Gospel gained more prominence in the 1980s through the teaching of the so-called televangelists, but again, this was a movement separate from mainstream Christianity.

Prosperity theology proponents promote the idea that God wants Christians to be “abundantly” successful in every way, with special emphasis on financial prosperity.

Support for the Prosperity Gospel is believed to be found by proponents in specific Bible verses and in its narratives of the lives and lifestyles of biblical characters. Critics counter that all of the verses Prosperity Gospel proponents use are taken by them out of their textual, cultural, historical and/or literary context thus falsely supporting their claims.

Following are some Bible verses used by Prosperity teachers to support their theology:

Deuteronomy 8:18 – “But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day” (New American Standard Bible)

Malachi 3:10 – “‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.'” (New American Standard Bible)

John 10:10 – “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (King James Version)

3 John 2-4 – “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers”

John Wayne Airport: Private jet owned by TBN. (Mark Boster/LAT)

Newport Beach: A TBN-owned mansion, foreground was on the market for $8 million. The network also owns one of the houses in the background. (Don Kelsen/LAT)

Among TBN’s faithful followers is Olivia Foster of Westminster, who sends the network $70 a month out of her $820 disability check. (Mark Boster/LAT)

http://www.trinityfi.org/press/latimes04.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1533448,00.html
http://www.theopedia.com/Prosperity_gospel
http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/posit.htm

Matthew 25:31-46 (New International Version)

Maybe this guy was in ministry, maybe not. He certainly looked the part. But he certainly served as a big object lesson for me.

Lesson 1: Since my pastor is also a close friend, I actually thought that I had overcome my tendency to put ministers on a high pedestals. Clearly I have some work to do. Our pastors and teachers ARE held to a higher standard — that’s biblical. But they are human. Even if you attend church every Sunday, chances are that you have no idea what a minister and his staff deal with every other day of the week: infidelity, broken marriages, abuse, neglect, addictions, church politics, illness, death, grief, money issues – the list goes on and on. It’s only by the Grace of God and their faith that they don’t become completely overwhelmed by it all. Sadly, many do and succumb to the same temptations the rest of us struggle with. Others simply walk away from the ministry.

Lesson 2: If you are a Christian, the world will judge you by what you do more than what you do not do; not by what you say or what you profess. Like Vince Antonucci says, “We’ve got to be the good news before we share the good news. Otherwise, the message has no integrity.” (I’m paraphrasing, forgive me if that’s not an exact quote.) You can rattle off Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and tell someone how Jesus saved you from the burning pits of hell, but if you get in your car and then cut them off in traffic, not only are you an a**hole, but you may have just added to the legions of people who turn away from God because of the people who claim to serve Him.

I just started reading Oswald Chambers’ “My Utmost for His Highest” daily devotional yesterday. It was originally published in 1935, but a good read stands the test of time.

“I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.” (Jeremiah 1:8) This was the scripture verse for today. It was extremely timely for me. (Isn’t God’s word almost always like that?) I want to share this particular devotion:

God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally…Wherever He sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are a matter of indifference, we have to sit loosely to all those things; if we do not, there will be heartbreak and panic and distress. That is the overshadowing of personal deliverance.

The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on Jesus Christ’s errands, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, Do not be bothered with whether you are being justly dealt with or not. To look for justice is a sign of deflection from devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we begin to grouse and to indulge in the self-indulgence of self-pity — Why should I be treated like this? If we are devoted to Jesus Christ, we have nothing to do with what we meet, whether it is just or unjust. Jesus says — Go steadily on with what I have told you to do and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance. The most devout among us become atheistic in this connection; we do not believe God, we enthrone common sense and tack the name of God on to it. We do lean on our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts.

I’ve been dealing with feelings of being treated unjustly. No matter how open and forthcoming I’ve attempted to be in this particular circumstance, there are those who want to twist words and misinterpret intentions. After a close friend of mine confided in me about a phone conversation she had with one person in particular, I lost my cool. I began to want to seek my own justice — knowing that it was for God to handle and suspecting that I was being tested. Did I pray about it? — yes. Did I seek wise counsel? — yes. Did I attempt to seek my own justice anyway? –yes!

After reading this passage this morning, I realize that I was out of line. If I am to do His will, I’m going to have to learn to just shut up sometimes and let Him take care of the justice part. It’s a huge pill to swallow, especially the shutting up part! May you seek Him with all of your heart today and every day, and let God take care of things in His own perfect time.