ugh. traveling.

We left Nashville yesterday and flew Midwest to Milwaukee. The plane took off about 30 minutes late. But that was fine. Only moments before we had learned about Nashville native Eric Volz being released from prison in Nicaragua. As we took off, I closed my eyes and cried, so much emotion involved with a situation like that. I seriously believed the boy might die in prison. But thank God he's free now.

About fifteen minutes before landing, Jess became nauseous. I rubbed her back and held ice on her neck while she sat leaned over with a bag in front of her face. Then, the pilot announced it was too foggy to land in Milwaukee, so we got re-routed to Grand Rapids. Ugh. So thirty minutes later, Jess is nauseous again, but so far, no upchucking.

That was to change. As the wheels hit the ground, so came the vomiting. 17 times. I counted. One right after another. And we weren't in Milwaukee yet.

We got off the plane. Not sure if you've been to the Grand Rapids airport, but let's just say it's not the ideal place to be stranded on a Friday night.

I stood in line, hoping to get some kind of information about whether or not we were going to be getting to Milwaukee. Jess vomited. I made friends with the other passengers. Jess made another run to the bathroom.

To make a long story short, we did finally make it to Milwaukee. 40 Vomits later. That's an estimate. Stopped counting after the first series.

Merry Christmas. Welcome home, Eric. (We prayed for you.)

merry christmas

I've been a horrible blogger lately. Seriously. And sadly, there's been so much to write about and I haven't had the chance. Of course, it's because I've been busy writing my book Churched. I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with this title. I cannot wait for you to get a chance to experience it. I'm loving it so far. It's draining me. But still, I'm in love with the creative process. Anyway, enough about all of that.

Jessica and I leave for Wisconsin this afternoon to spend the holiday with her family. So, keep us in your prayers. The pregnancy has made traveling a little stressful. Jess's headaches--she's pretty much had one since November 18--just suck the life out of her. I'm praying that she gets some relief over the holiday. She needs time with her family, and it's not as fulfilling when she doesn't feel well.

I want to wish all of you a Happy Christmas. I hope your holiday is filled with laughter, tears, family, friends, peace, and the spirit of God.

Amongst the busyness of life, I'm really trying to focus my thoughts and my heart on the universal hope of Jesus. I pray you get the chance to do the same.

God bless each of you, and thank you for journeying with me.

Peace.

chosen people... new book suggests dna could be the secret...

Interesting.

we three kings... claymation

favor?

Hey friends. Can you please consider signing up for my blog at the link to the right? And maybe if you would want to, you could get some of your friends to do it to... hey, it's just a thought... and to those who are signed up... thanks!

mpt

my wife is glowing...

Jess went away on a mini-vacation to visit a friend in Chicago this past weekend. During one of our conversations over the phone, she said to me, "I'm starting to really feel pregnant!"

I wasn't sure what she meant. I'm not supposed to know. To even pretend to know would be strange and assuming of me. A few hours later she called again, and that time, she said, "Matthew, I think I look a lot more pregnant today than I did yesterday."

I figured she meant that she was feeling a little um, shall I say, fat. But again, I pretended not to know what she was talking about.

The pregnancy so far has been hard. She hasn't been overly nauseous, but extremely tired and her migraines have gotten a lot worse. So, when she got off the plane on Sunday night, I kind of expected her to look tired and rundown. But she didn't. She was glowing. I can't explain it, but she looked as pretty as I have ever seen her.

Pregnancy is weird.

walking on water... i'm probably the last person to have seen this

wow.

fake... ramblings about right now...

Do you ever feel like a complete fake? I'm having a fake day. It's similar to having a fat day or an old-wrinkled day. You look in the mirror and think to yourself, "Are you for real? You seem kind of fake today." For some of us, that's everyday.

I feel fake today. However, aren't most/all Christians fake on some level? That's hardly an excuse, but it does seem to be a reality. But it's difficult being completely and freely real in the culture that so many of us live in, one where we sing pretty pop songs to Jesus and sit around and contemplate whether we're predestined to be singing pretty pop songs to Jesus.

Most of us are fake because we're scared. (Stereotyping, I know.) We fear what people will say. That's human nature, I suppose--to be concerned about what others think. Oh, I sometimes like to pretend that I'm not concerned about the thoughts of other people, but I am. I pretty much have to call my therapist every time somebody leaves me a less-than-kind comment on my blog. I'm exaggerating (to some degree). But you know what I mean.

I'm cursed with wanting people to like me, even LOVE me. I'm not naive to the fact that it's impossible to get everyone to love me, but that doesn't stop me from craving it a little and trying to make it happen, as if I am able to manipulate the love and affection from others.

I guess the truth is, I'm not convinced that people would like me all that much if they knew every nuance of my being: my thoughts, my potential, my human nature, my flaws, my insecurities, my sin, my questions, the fact that sometimes I feel completely fucked up. That scares me sometimes.

For instance, I'm feeling fear right now. I'm sitting at my computer contemplating whether or not I should leave the f-word (I can't write it again--that would be too much). I'm thinking to myself, what if somebody at my church reads this? Or my mom? Or what if somebody decides not to purchase one of my books because I used the word on my blog? Or what if a church decides to cancel/not book a speaking engagement because I used it? Or what if somebody thinks I'm only saying it because they believe I'm convinced it makes me sound bad ass? Should I go back and change it to effed-up instead? That might be better. Or worse. I'm not sure.

The truth is, maybe all of those thoughts are good reasons for me to go back and change it to "messed up." See how fear works, pushing us to put on display "restricted" versions of ourselves? However, maybe that's the way life's supposed to be--God's design if you will--restriction. At the moment, I don't know. But "messed up" doesn't communicate it and "effed-up" would just be dumb, so for now, I'm leaving it. At least until my mom calls and gives me crap.

I don't feel any less fake after writing this blog, mostly just some fear.

I'm gonna go eat some Fruity Pebbles now. Mmm.

politics and the bible: part 1 of 3

This is something my friend L.C. Baker and I wrote for What You Didn't Learn From Your Parents About Politics. (Yeah, I actually did write a book about politics, but I think the book's publisher forgot I did. That's a long story. But you should buy the book; I think it's pretty good.) Here's part one of the excerpt:

THREE PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICS AND THE BIBLE

POLITICS FROM THE BEGINNING…
Now you know this. But it’s worth repeating. The topics of relationships and power are addressed repeatedly in the Bible, from the very beginning of the first book.

Consider the life and times of Adam. Can you imagine being all alone among God’s creation in this great big world? Neither could God, I suppose; he deemed it not good for Adam to be alone, that he was in need of relationship to become complete. You know the story. Through perhaps the weirdest series of events possible—God puts Adam to sleep, pops out a couple of his ribs and out of somewhere—we’re not sure we want to know where—pops woman. And it’s through Eve that relationship is provided.

Enter politics. Some might say dirty politics.

Because humanity’s gift of relationship came at a price. Those of us who are married know this to be true. Sure, Adam gets the companionship of woman [and vice versa], which includes the benefits of nurture, conversation, and sexuality. Certainly, the presence of Eve ushers in all of those things, and according to God, man is made complete through her. But she also listens to the serpent and showcases humanity’s downfall.

Right at the beginning of God’s narrative, we see struggle and compromise, relationship and power: they are essential to our very existence. Cain and Abel introduce the first sibling rivalry, and politics come in, literally, with a vengeance. Cain’s jealousy is politically motivated: he’s frustrated with the fact that his brother is higher up on the divine political ladder, the fact that his sacrifice isn’t accepted by God, and Abel’s sacrifice is. On a mythic level, the story of Cain and Abel has plenty of political and social undertones: it indicates a preference of the wandering herder over the stable farmer, a bias against settled civilization, a prejudice against the city.

That prejudice shows itself in other stories throughout Genesis. The Flood, the tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah: all of them, on a symbolic level, are expressions of the danger of civilization, of settled towns, of organized government: the danger of the polis, of the city.

The danger, in other words, of politics. Da Da Da Dum!

IDEA ONE: WITHDRAWAL

The stories in Genesis answer this danger in several ways. But probably the most common response in Genesis is retreat from the city. Yes, many of the stories in Genesis present God’s people as ones who are supposed to run for their little lives. Consider the following:

-Cain was sent away in exile [ok, maybe he wasn’t really one of the most godly people in the Bible, but God did promise to protect him, so there’s gotta be something there]
-Noah “flees the wrath to come”
-At the tower of Babel, everyone is scattered linguistically and culturally as well as geographically
-Abram is called by God to leave his country and his people
-Lot is told to leave the evil city

One of the responses of godly people in the Bible to the evils of politics is, repeatedly, withdrawal and isolation.

In today’s world, withdraw and isolation are options that often seem tempting. [And actually, between you and me, there are some Christians who I wish would take those options. Yes, I know: that was mean; I’m sorry.] And Christians do. There are extreme examples like Amish towns [beep, beep: horse and buggy coming through], and there are less extreme examples like families who home school their children [and make them enter the National Spelling Bee and National Geography contests], and those who move to small-town America [and pursue farming despite having never grazed anything in their lives except the racks at Macy’s]. Of course, there are also those Christians who live in holes in the ground in places like West Virginia and Wyoming; they stockpile water and canned goods and wait for utter destruction to hit.

Throughout history, this instinct of retreat, this desire to withdraw from the evil in the world, has been a refuge for many. People who adhere to this type of thinking often wonder, “what else can one do in the face of so much evil”? And I certainly sometimes understand the sentiment. But does this type of thinking make sense? Are there other options? Unable to influence the culture, are we left with no choice but to remove ourselves from it as fast as possible? [I’ll get to this answer soon enough.]

[sometimes our theology can affect our politics]

One approach to this solution of withdrawal from the world has gained popularity in recent times through the bestselling novel series Left Behind. [Let’s all say, “Left Behind.”] As some 60 million people have read, these books present vivid pictures of the end of the world as seen through a pre-millennial dispensationalist eschatology .

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking, Um, Matthew, so how does Left Behind affect a person’s politics? And what the heck is a pre-millennial dispensationalist eschatology? Well, if that’s what you’re thinking then you are in luck, because I’m going to explain that right now. Well, maybe not the pre-millennial dispensationalist eschatology part, because I’m not entirely sure what it is either. However, in the Left Behind version of the end of times, all Christians on earth are raptured [i.e., taken away, leaving articles of clothes everywhere—it’s really quite messy] up to heaven [yeah, according to Left Behind, we’ll be entering heaven buck naked], and after we’re gone, the rest of the world is plunged into utter chaos and confusion. And then, the world is united under the Antichrist in a lead-up to the final battle between Satan and God [when all hell breaks loose]. Although not all interpretations of biblical prophecy are as literal as this version, the fact remains: your expectation of the end of the world is bound to influence your politics.

If you live life by your belief that ultimately the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and the best you can hope to do is to hold off the storm a little longer, then for you, politics is a big ole’ waste of time. I mean, from that perspective, it might actually be better for the world to get worse instead of better, because, like a blister that has to pop before it can heal, everything will have to get as bad as it can possibly be before Jesus will come to make everything right. From that philosophy, it’s better to withdraw from politics and let the world go on making a mess of things. Once things get bad enough, God will come and fix it.

[WE INTERRUPT THIS BOOK WITH A DISCLAIMER: Please know that all views expressed in this book are not the views of Matthew Paul Turner, L.C. Baker or Th1nk Books, we’re simply trying to give you a broad, eh, dramatic picture of how some Christians interpret scripture and how those views affect their politics.]

Fortunately, the Bible does offer other alternatives to the problems of civilization than to become a separatist. Good thing, huh?

TO BE CONTINUED

what the huck-a-bee?

my friend ashley cleveland ...

... has been nominated for another Grammy Award. She's already won two!

give me your thoughts...

Is this commercial offensive to you? It's in Italian, so you probably won't be able to understand what it's saying (unless you speak Italian), but you'll get the basic idea just by looking at it. I kind of think it's a little funny. You know, ha ha funny. Not hilarious funny.

But an Italian priest didn't feel the same way...

video blog... forgive me... the voice and video is a little off... it's like one of those martial art movies...

christmas

"Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish. Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself."

Francis C. Farley