Happy New Year!!!

Today is Rosh Hashanah.

Hillary is happy since her school is dismissed today because of it. I am happy because my Torts professor cancelled today’s class in honor of it.

So Happy New Year to all the Jewish folks around the world. Enjoy your day of rest. We’ll be enjoying it with you.

Meet Me At The Fair

Our congregation held a ministry fair yesterday morning. We enjoyed mixing and mingling with everyone, meeting new people, and getting to know better those we have already met. All of the ministries of the church set up information booths complete with brochures and sign-up sheets. It was very cool to see all the good things going on through the University Church of Christ, particularly serving the poor in the area.

It was also very strange not signing up for everything. Law school is so demanding that it is simply impossible to be super involved right now. Made me feel like a slacker.

I’m still sorting out a good answer for why I came to law school. It’s funny, I’m completely positive this was the right thing to do, but I can’t come up with an easy answer for why it was the right thing to do. Lots of little parts to the answer all come together to make it right, and even if I could assemble them all in coherent fashion, no one would be interested enough to comprehend such a complex answer.

One strange thing I do know is, as strange as it sounds to my own ears, I did not come to law school to save the world. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to save the world, but that’s not what drove me here. I recalled this yesterday at the ministry fair. I will consider this today when I don’t go to a cool sounding meeting where a guy working in the Congo speaks at the law school to tell us how he is saving the world.

I am so hard-wired toward world-saving ventures that I have to remind myself not to get sidetracked.

I feel cynical at times, but that’s not completely accurate. It isn’t that I’ve given up the idea per se, or even that I’m postponing the pursuit. It’s more that I’ve discovered a very different way to go about it. I just can’t formulate it in words yet. And I’m too busy to try.

Monday awaits.

Welcome to the World of Water Polo

We attended our first water polo match yesterday. We picked a good one: California, ranked #4 in the country, came to Pepperdine to take on the Waves, ranked #6. Jody and Hillary both got an eye-full: two sets of tall, physically fit, nearly naked California guys beating each other up in a swimming pool.

You thought I was kidding? They wear more clothes on their head than the rest of the body combined.

Anyway, I tried to appreciate the finer points of the sport, but since I don’t understand it that was rather difficult. There were lots of whistles. And that was just from Jody (HA! Just kidding about the Jody part.) No, two referees of some sort walked up and down the sides of the pool blowing whistles and making calls that everyone else seemed to understand.

In the end, Pepperdine won 7-5 and will no doubt move up in the national rankings.

I have heard that water polo is one of the most brutal sports. Above the water these guys beat each other up. Below the water… well, you just don’t want to know.

All I do know is that OUR team is one of the best in the country. And our nearly naked guys are better than yours.

The Nice Party

Jody and I watched the debate last night on CNN, and based on the reactions of a few folks in Ohio I think I might launch a new political party.

Let me shoot myself in the foot right off by saying that I’m hands-down for Barack Obama in this election. Have been for a long time, and last night didn’t change anything on that front. Strangely enough, I wanted Obama to be the Democratic nominee early on, and I wanted McCain to be the Republican nominee early on, too. I lean way more toward the Democrats in general. WAY more. At the same time, I don’t find either party to be paragons of virtue or the hope for the world or anything like that… It’s just that we get two choices, and I greatly prefer one to the other.

Anyway, now that most people I know are angry at me, back to my idea…

CNN gathered a group of undecided Ohio voters together in a room with Soledad O’Brien to watch the debate. A third were registered Democrats, a third registered Republicans, and a third independent. They gave each person a monitor to gauge their reactions as the debate happened (turned the dial one way when they liked what they were hearing and vice-versa). So during the debate, there were these three lines constantly at the bottom of the screen showing how each of these three groups were reacting to what the candidates were saying.

It served as quite the metaphor: most of the time all three were flat like the patient was dead.

Anyway, I noticed something about the independent voters during the debate, something analyst Jeffrey Toobin brought up after the debate ended. Whenever one candidate said personally negative things about the other candidate, the independent voters didn’t like it. Whenever one of the candidates said something complimentary about the other (and, I might add, only one of the candidates ever did this), the line always went up.

Which got me to wondering. Is it possible that America wants people to be nice to each other? Truth be told, I have a hard time believing this to be true, but it gives me a tiny glimmer of hope.

Let’s launch THE NICE PARTY!!!!!!

As a preacher, I read quite a bit about postmodernism (how our world is changing). I read about the Emerging Church movement in this vein. One of the striking characteristics of this phenomenon is that people don’t like the “us vs. them” mentality, a mentality so entrenched in our political system that I cannot imagine it changing.

But I’m holding out hope for my candidate of choice in this election season. That he might sense this trend that close observers saw on display on CNN last night, and begin to act on it.

EXAMPLE #1: I’ll tell you when I decided Obama was my candidate of choice. Oddly enough, it was during the Jeremiah Wright mess. Obama delivered his famous speech on the race issue, and it wasn’t the speech so much (though it was fantastic). It was a fleeting moment in the speech when he showed humility (something about how imperfect his candidacy was). That did it for me. I had never seen humility in a presidential campaign. It was brief, but I saw it.

EXAMPLE #2: Last night, as alluded to earlier, Obama was the only one who ever said his opponent was right about something. He said it several times – enough to garner attention – though he blasted him many times, too. Once again, something you don’t see very often.

Since I have an active imagination…

OBAMA V. CLINTON: I know being kind, deferential, and humble is about as risky a move imaginable in a presidential election, but imagine with me. I wonder what the reaction would have been when Senator Clinton tore into Senator Obama on the campaign trail if his reaction would have been more along the lines of… “I would vote for Senator Clinton. I have great respect for her positions and share so many of them it is sometimes hard to even see any differences. I am not running against her so much as with her. I respect her career, and if she wins the nomination, I will support her wholeheartedly. I believe that I might be the better candidate to rally the country together as one, but I do not want to be her opponent as much as I want to be a partner in leading our country forward.”

Call me crazy, but I really think the country might be ready to hear something like that…

OBAMA V. MCCAIN: Risky, I know, but I couldn’t help thinking last night (especially watching that green line on the screen) what would have happened if Obama would have spent even more time saying, “Look, I have great respect for my opponent. Please don’t leave here thinking I’m not honored to share this stage with him. Neither of us have all the answers because no one has all the answers. We do, however, come at a few things from different perspectives, and this great country gets to choose which direction it prefers. But I count Senator McCain as someone deserving all our respect, and I refuse to engage in any sort of dialogue that might hint at any disdain toward him in any way. Here are our policy differences, but do not for a minute think that these differences reflect any disrespect I have for Senator McCain as a human being.”

Sigh…

Pipe dreams. That’s what my cynical nature tells me. I’m just saying this morning that the reactions of those independent Ohio voters last night, and the reality of our changing world gives me, yes, the audacity to hope for something better someday.

Point Dume and Beyond

Last night was one of those nights I’d like to freeze and preserve. After dinner, instead of running back to the library, we had a few hours to spend together as a family. We chose to drive down to Point Dume, wander a few trails, and check out the view.

It was warmer than normal in Malibu yesterday, which kept us from dressing properly for our little hike to the top of Point Dume. It was downright chilly down (up?) there! Nonetheless, we walked to the top of this mini-mountain and were treated to one of the most amazing views on the planet. We saw tidepools swirling in the surf below. We saw dolphins playing together. And we watched the sun set on the Pacific Ocean.

We read that Point Dume is THE place to go see whales migrating between February and April, and you can guarantee that we’ll be there for that rare sight. In fact, Jody said we ought to make the trek down and wander the mountain trails every week!

When we returned to our apartment, Hillary wanted to throw a football around with me. She had been telling us that she had learned how to throw a spiral at P.E. class and wanted to show off her newfound talent, so we went out into the courtyard and played catch for a good long time. She’s really good!!! Malibu High has a Powderpuff team, and once they check out the arm on this girl, she just might be their future quarterback!!!

More than anything, though, playing catch with her brought back a flood of memories of doing the same thing with my dad at her age. In addition to hiking Point Dume, I want to spend many more evenings playing catch with my daughter.

Then we had a fire drill, which was interesting.

Then I went back to the library for another three hours of study.

But Thursday night was so good that even Fridays are a bit of a letdown.

Back From Lake Wobegon

At eight o’clock, the lights go down and tall, lanky Garrison Keillor walks on stage to a round of applause. The tools that await him are sparse: just a microphone, a stool, and a glass of water that he only touches once to move it out of his way. Keillor is in his mid-sixties now. He is wearing a brown sport jacket, white dress shirt, and solid red tie, along with faded blue jeans six inches too short to emphasize his bright red socks and red Saucony sneakers.

He begins to sing sonnets, some humorous, some touching, one after another. Afterwards, he immediately launches into a story about “his people” (growing up in Minnesota) and for a full hour and a half the entire theater is spellbound. We laugh for a solid ninety minutes, and then, like an apparition he walks off the stage and disappears into the night.

No autographs. No pictures. No handshakes. Just an amazing gift of ninety minutes of rich storytelling.

I don’t know if storytelling is a dying art so much as it is just rare. And in my humble opinion, Garrison Keillor stands as the best of this rare breed. Hands down, my favorite.

You can have your television shows, your movies, and your iPods. Catch me on the right day and I’ll even give you the things I enjoy more, the blogs, the sporting events, and the theater. But when law school ends, be sure to give me back my books. And give me someone skilled in telling a story – preferably Garrison Keillor. Lost in the world of imagination, slowly savoring each morsel of a delectable story, I’ll be just fine.

It was a nice trip to Lake Wobegon last evening, and I’m looking forward to going back soon.

Cool

Jody & Hillary were watching “Biggest Loser” last night and noticed that the waterslide challenge was filmed at Pepperdine’s Alumni Park! Pretty cool…

Tonight, I will take a rare study break to go see Garrison Keillor at Smothers Theater here on campus. Pretty cool two times in a row…

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Funny, but I just went to Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” website (a longstanding link from my blog) and noticed the following “letter-to-the-editor” style interaction featured on the home page:

“Mr. Keillor, when you come to Abilene Christian October 18, you might like to know that hundreds and hundreds of your auditors will be members of Churches of Christ, who practice four-part a cappella singing in their worship assemblies. This tradition is still strong in Abilene. So ask us to sing with you. I think you’ll be delighted at the result.” – Carisse B.

“I’ll be planning on it, Carisse. The Abilene audience will be up against some stiff competition, though. I remember a Mennonite audience in Indiana that sang a capella a gorgeous four- or eight-part “Doxology.” I just said, “I understand that you people have your own version of ‘Praise God from Whom all blessings flow’” and I pointed at them and they sang. And then there was an audience of Lutherans at St. Olaf who, when I pointed at them, sang four verses of “Children of the Heavenly Father” in four-part harmony. We don’t have many Church of Christ people up here and I understand that you don’t allow musical instruments in church — neither did the Sanctified Brethren whom I grew up among — so I will have the band hidden behind a screen. What shall we sing? “Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing”? “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross”? Whatever we do, we’ll get complaints from the humanist crowd, but hey — complaint is an art form and it’s good for people to get some practice. In the Church of Christ, you probably call it witnessing.” – G.K.

(I’m wondering if we’ll get to sing tonight? Since lots of CofC folks don’t think Pepperdine is a “real” CofC school, I doubt it.)

A Good Monday

Jody is in communication with the personal assistant of a celebrity (since it’s job-related, I won’t go name-dropping!).

Hillary’s dance teacher (aka Britney Spears’ friend) told her last night that she is too advanced for the class she is in and needs to move on up (which must be a cool feeling). Plus, Rex played the piano during her choir class yesterday morning!

I attended my first SLA meeting yesterday at lunchtime. I am one of three students asked to serve the first year law class as a Spiritual Life Advisor (an honor we have the privilege of holding for our class through all three years of law school). It is a neat group, and us newbies had the pleasure of being “prayed over” by the rest.

So Monday was cool. Wonder what Tuesday will bring?

Ingesting Jesus

After the last ten years, it’s really nice to go to church that has a smart preacher.

Yesterday, Ken’s sermon was titled, “Eat This Book,” a title he admittedly stole from one of my favorite author’s books (Eugene Peterson). Both the book and the sermon used Apostle John’s command to ingest a scroll in his revelation experience to emphasize our need to ingest Scripture, too.

Ken pointed out that Bible study isn’t the end, but the means to the end, which is Jesus (Ken’s cool like that).

But back to the part about his being smart.

Ken referred to the familiar Psalm 1 which talks about the “blessed man” who “meditates on the law day and night,” and then shared that the exact same Hebrew word used for “meditate” in Psalm 1 is used in an obscure verse from Isaiah 31 (verse 4):

“This is what the LORD says to me: ‘As a lion growls, a great lion over his prey— and though a whole band of shepherds is called together against him, he is not frightened by their shouts or disturbed by their clamor— so the LORD Almighty will come down to do battle on Mount Zion and on its heights.”

Did you see it in there? Me neither. I learned Sunday morning that the word “meditate” in Psalm 1 is the word translated “growl” in Isaiah 31.

Ken taught that we shouldn’t gaze pensively at the ceiling, scratch our chin, and think deep thoughts when we study. Instead, we should approach Bible study as something to wrestle with; something we wrestle with and fully intend to consume.

Here’s the thought that I took away: the Eucharist should become much more than a “remembrance” that Jesus died (“for our sins” is how it usually goes). Instead, it should be the act of remembering that we are to be in the process of becoming what we eat.

Consuming the Word of God. Ingesting Jesus.

12-0

I just can’t take good pictures in a gym. I’m afraid this is the best I could do last night.

Anyway, the Waves took down Texas State in three straight sets and moved to 12-0 on the season. Jody & Hillary went to the early afternoon match against Cal State-Northridge while I worked on my Closed Memorandum Assignment for Legal Research & Writing, and we went to the evening match together.

We’ve been walking down to Firestone Fieldhouse (and back) to watch volleyball, and given the mountain between us (and our “out of shape” status), I think we get a bigger workout than the volleyball team!