bryan and sean

we are starting a weekly podcast. get excited.

christmas in august

i recently read an article about how the nba is choosing its potential christmas day matchups. thinking back to last christmas, laying on the floor in my grandparents living room with my grandpa's fireplace blazing watching the lakers and the suns battle. my uncle joel beaded sweat on his forehead, either from kobe bryant excitement or that blazing fire. bryan and i shared similar fascination with nba games on christmas. what is it good for? great naps. captivating matchups. non-stop trash talking with uncle joel. so, the nba decided on a five game quintuple-header (?). the madness kicks off with orlando vs new orleans. then following is san antonio vs phoenix. then boston vs. l.a. then washington vs cleveland. then dallas vs. portland. i think david stern did an okay job and i want to highlight how i could have made it better.

the suns and spurs will be phenomenal. probably the first time, i will root for shaq on christmas day. here is how it has to play out. the game must go to triple overtime. shaq will hit a game winning three pointer and it must be in san antonio. i want to see duncan's bewildered face after phoenix avenges its 2008 game 1 playoff loss. the boston/l.a. also may play out as a classic as long paul pierce dunks on sasha vujacic to win the game in overtime. i will keep joel on speed dial to make sure that anything kobe bryant does he appreciates and when kobe falls short in a loss to the celtics, i will call and see if he is accepting trade offers.

how can the dallas and portland game be interesting? how about an elton john and greg oden duet at halftime? i saw him on the espys; i know that man can sing and play the piano. plus, i think elton will be into oden's style (i mean they are practically the same age, right?). i think i will plan a nap through the washington/cleveland game unless soulja boy and jay-z show up to support deshawn stevenson and lebron james.

the nba has to seize the opportunity for great advertisement the way the super bowl has. chris kaman should be featured in a series of geico's caveman commercials. i hope to see sam cassell as the new alien villain in transformers 2.

i hope you can appreciate the absurdity of this post. i promise to be more relevant in the future, but i coudln't resist posting one of my brother and i's more recent conversations.

dig em up

page four hundred and seventy four

i believe this day will come. it is, though, taking longer than expected.

whatever i do, however i find a way to live, i will tell these stories. i have spoken to every person i have encountered these last difficult days, and every person who has entered this club during the awful morning hours, because to do anything else would be something less than human. i speak to these people, and i speak to you because i cannot help it. it gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength, to know that you are there. i covet your eyes, your ears, the collapsible space between us. how blessed are we to have each other? i am alive and you are alive so we must fill the air with our words. i will fill today, tomorrow, every day until i am taken back to god. i will tell stories to people who will listen and to people who don't want to listen, to people who seek me out and to those who run. all the while i will know that you are there. how can i pretend that you do not exist? it would be almost as impossible as you pretending that i do not exist.

-from dave eggers' what is the what

developing thoughts on church

i think my title is a bit ironic or at least i meant it to be. this is the problem with theology students trying to make jokes. over the past few weeks, i have had several different discussions on the church. i encountered all sorts of views and opinions on very distinct paths, but all about personal journeying with the church. a converted catholic. an orthodox monk. emergent hype. failed evangelical churches. failed churches. a clash of generations. lost in semantics. it is evidently strange how buzz words continue to drive the reformation and confusion of and within the evangelical church.

what greatly bothers me about these semantics is our true failure of capturing the idea and sentiment of redemption. have our imaginations ceased? for my generation, most "spiritual revolutions" are driven by the failures of the church, whether it comes in searching out truth in other religions or attempts to redefine and reform christianity. i wrote in an earlier post about something g.k. chesterton writes. he writes that the failures of the church and the hypocrisy of people in the church are practical examples that the doctrine of humanity and sin are true.

it is seemingly strange how we are constantly seeking to redefine who god is rather than allowing for god to redefine who we are. we consume ourselves in the process of fitting god to who we are. this is why we go to churches that fit our class, race, style, intellect, and comfort. this is also why we are so disturbed by churches that speak about god differently than the mold we have crested in our own minds for who god "really" is.

america is home to a divided church. one that fights over politics, money, sex, education, etc. god does not become something because i say "this is who god is". god is completely timeless and not subject to current trends and movements. i think it would be beneficial for the church to understand that god was not created in our image. we create false idols of who god is and strike down other "god" idols from other churches. we need to reform the church to tell the good news of the gospel, to be the living enactment the life, death and resurrection of jesus christ. is that not what the church should be? god's kingdom on earth living out the story of salvation through community, worship, eucharist and baptism?

the return

i am back. i have had a long hiatus from writing. i am determined to make a comeback. just like michael jordan, i hope i can return to whatever form i had before. over the next few weeks, i am hoping to post some stories from south america, passages from books, maybe a picture or two, some stories of life in the office and these such things that make up my life.

a good accident

i found a book in my bag when i arrived home. mary oliver's red bird. here is a poem of her many that i enjoyed.

"of the empire"

we will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. we will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. all
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. and they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.