August 24, 2004
This won't be a habbit, I promise...
...But the Chiefs continue to make the headlines. I must report what is going on in the world, no?
OK, so last Wednesday, Aug. 18th, our very own president, Mr. George W. Bush, visited our very own Kansas City Chiefs at their Summer Training Camp in River Falls, WI. He was passing through, on his way to speak later that day in Hudson, WI and in St. Paul, MN. That guy keeps a busy schedule, I tell you what. But not too busy to hang out with the most potent offense in the NFL...I continue telling you what.
The president was quoted as saying to Priest Holmes, "I remember when you used to play high school football back in Texas."
Holmes was excited to see the President, especially since Priest's dad is currently serving in Iraq. Apparently, there are more Bush-supporters on the Chiefs team than I would have guessed. GM Carl Peterson and coach Dick Vermeil are well-known supporters of Bush. But the players, surprisingly, went nuts. For example, TE Billy Baber, hobbling on crutches, had the president sign a copy of the 911 commission report he had with him!
There are some great pictures of the whole deal on the River Falls website. I mean, literally, the whole deal. If you click fast enough, it's almost a motion picture. But it's worth it, if you have a problem like I do.
You can also check out the Kansas City Star website for more...and yet less pictures and a brief article.
I have to admit, I was euphoric about the whole thing. I've never been impressed with meeting rock stars or movie stars. I've never been into getting autographs, either. But, man, I would have given my first born to be there with BOTH the Chiefs AND President Bush. Oh, if only I had a first born.
Well, Nica and I went to the training camp that Friday, the day before the Chiefs broke camp and headed back to KC. It was very exciting but almost comical to see these guys that I really, really love practicing on what was basically a nice high school football field. It seemed surreal. But they sure let you get close. It was very cool. Nica took some pictures with the camera on her phone but they didn't turn out so hot. So I won't bother wowing you with them here. I'll admit that I don't know anything at all about what things should look like in training camp. But they sure looked good. Trent Green is throwing some amazing passes. And people seem to be comfortable catching them. That's a good combination.
The only other Chiefs news is that they just beat the pants off of The St. Louis Rams on Monday Night Football. Sure, it's preseason. But our starters clobbered their starters. So that's nice.
So...um...what else could I possibly blog about?... I'll work on that. Really.
August 17, 2004
Yeah, but it's hard to ignore an elephant.
Let's get back to our general topic of discussion, here, shall we? We've been talking Postmodernism and the Emerging Church for a number of moons now. So in an effort to get back to it, I'm going to dig up the past a bit.
Kevin Hendricks is a friend of ours who knows a thing or two about blogs. In fact, he set up all of these glorious HFT blogs right here. Naturally, we hold him in high esteem. Kevin used to work at BGEA for passageway.org, back when they were sensible and were based out of Minneapolis. When BGEA become unsensible and moved to Charlotte, NC, Kevin remained sensible by remaining in the Twin Cities.
All of that to say that recently I discovered that Kevin had blogged about me way back in September of 2003. I had no idea. He was commenting on an article I had written to accompany our video "Our Friend Pete," which passageway.org was kind enough to show to the world (and which you can see on the main HappyFunTime website).
Anyway, my lovely wife Nica saw his blog and posted a comment on it. But, since his blog entry is almost a year old now, the chances of anyone ever seeing her response are pretty slim. That's where I come in. Thanks to the work that Kevin has done setting up this blog, I can now copy and paste an excerpt from his blog about me here in my blog about him.
And the circle of life continues...
What follows is directly taken from Kevin's blog entry. Hopefully, it'll help explain this picture.
Sunday, September 21, 2003
Ned, have you thought about one of the other major religions, they're all pretty much the same.
"There's an old Hindu proverb that goes something like this…"Three blind men stumble upon an elephant. The first blind man finds the trunk of the elephant. He feels the long, smooth trunk and thinks it's a snake. The second man grabs one of the legs of the elephant. It's rough, textured and really thick. He thinks it's the trunk of a giant tree. The third blind man grabs the tail of the elephant. He assumes it is a rope.
"The moral of this story is that we all perceive things differently. Many people would tell you this story shows us that nothing is real, that no one's perception is more valid than anyone else's, that everyone's view is "true."
"But there's one problem with this interpretation of the story. The blind men were, in fact, holding an elephant. That was the truth. It wasn't a snake or a tree or a rope. It was an elephant." (from "Our Friend Pete" by Wes Halula, taken from passageway.org)
The funny thing about relativism is that we have to live with it. Some Christians get all up tight about relativism, the idea that your morality depends on what you believe, the idea that all religions are true, however you want to phrase it, some Christians get all worked up about this idea and really want to emphasize that no matter what you think it is, it's really an elephant. The truth is the truth, no matter how you think you see it.
That's all well and good, but the problem is we don't know who's seeing what. While we decry the "well that's true for you," response, we fail to recognize that there are a lot of things about Christianity that don't exactly jive. There are things about the faith that vary depending on who you talk to, the "truth" changes depending on which brand of Christianity you're dealing with.
I get the feeling a lot of Christians ignore this perplexing aspect of our faith, choosing instead to think that we have all the right answers, we have the correct version of the truth, we know we're touching an elephant. When all along the brother in the church next door thinks it's a rhino, not an elephant, which is a different version of the truth, and a different right answer.
There's a funky contradiction that exists, and somehow God deals with that. Perhaps one of the Christian denominations has it right and all the others are wrong, but we never really think about that. I guess sometimes I think we just need to admit that we don't have a monopoly on truth. We need to admit that it's possible we might not know everything about the Bible, we might have screwed a few things up. It doesn't mean the foundation of our faith is whack, it doesn't mean our entire belief structure is going to come crumbling down. I think contradictions exist, and God has no problem with them. I don't know how that works, but I know it does. I know I'm not right about everything (I've probably screwed my logic up right here), and that's OK.
Modernism vs. post-modernism is a big debate a lot of cutting edge churchy people like to get into, and while I hate trying to define that sort of thing, this is one of things that fits neatly in the modern/post-modern debate. Modernity is about always being right. Post-modernity somehow finds a way around that and is just fine with being wrong. Of course these are simply different ways of interacting with your world and neither of them is necessarily better than the other, but that OK with being messed up idea seems to gel with my concept of grace -- I'm all screwed up, but it's all good.
Posted by kevin at September 21, 2003 08:39 PM
It seems that the unfortunate part of "its all good" is the slow process of everyone deciding that since we can never know for sure what this thing is that we are holding, there is no need to try to figure it out. Ah, the tension between realizing that we are welcome into God's presence and remembering that we are wretched and do not deserve it.
It is getting into very fine semantics, but I think that probably "seemingly contradicting" or "paradoxal" would be better descriptors than "contradicting." Because, as fine of a distinction as it is, I think it is important to note that there is a brain out there that is bigger than ours.
As slight as is it, it is the difference between God being Creator of everything and schizophrenic.
There is a difference between saying "What I believe is empirically correct" and "there is an empirical truth out there."
I guess the line gets blurred often because if you believe that there IS a truth, then you must bet your life on it. ...And here again with the paradox, the faith that is unseen and hoped for, yet sure.
I think there are a lot of young kids out there who have never been introduced to the concept of truth on any level. Not even in terms of citing sources for school papers, or simple logical thinking skills. And if there are Christians out there trying to promote the idea to the kids these days, "…get[ing] all worked up about this idea and really want[ing] to emphasize that no matter what you think it is, it's really an elephant," then God bless them.
HappyFunTime recently made a parable video called Catch My Drift (can be viewed at HappyFunTime.com) in which three of the characters use grossly exaggerated poor logical thinking skills. Because its funny. But a good friend of ours recently told us that his tween daughter has the same logic process. That's not funny.
Its not the end of the world, but its not funny. I just don't want the mature ones who are finding their freedom to hinder the young ones who don't know the difference between reality and television. And believe me, we don't.
Posted by: HFT Nica at August 12, 2004 12:07 AM
So what do you think? Are Christians too hung up on the notion of Truth? Or is it impossible to be too hung up on the fundamental base of why we exsist? Holla back, peeps.
August 16, 2004
I bleed red...not just literally, though.
I realize no one has quite the same fire in their belly that I do. I can't help it. I'm not referring to the gassy bloated fire I feel. I imagine there are other Bar-B-Q lovers out there with the same issue. No, I'm talking about my almost unhealthy love of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Oh, sure. It's embarrassing at times. I am, after all, an artist. But every year I subject my loved ones, my liked ones and a few innocent bystanders to my "problem." In fact, on any given Sunday, it is not uncommon to see HFT sitting in a random sports bar somewhere in America, watching the Chiefs when we should be driving to our next show. Bless the heart of the other HFT'ers. A big part of their ministry is their relational ministry to me.
And every year, I genuinely think KC is going to win the Super Bowl again, only to have my fragile little heart crushed. In fact, the last time the Chiefs won it all was the year before I was born. I don't remember Super Bowl IV very well. So, while I take great comfort in the fact that this Super Bowl victory was against the Minnesota Vikings, there is no reason, given my history of heartache over the Chiefs, why I should think the Boys in Red will win it all.
But this year is different. I'm pretty sure the Chiefs are going to win the Super Bowl.
August 04, 2004
Technical Support is not, technically, supportive.
I just bought a cool little mouse for my cool little computer. But the thing is, the mouse doesn't work with my computer. Naturally, I call Kensington's technical support line. It hangs up on me. Three times.
So I call the help line one more time. "Eureka! I'm through!" I says to myself. But after 7 minutes on hold, it hangs up on me again! So I go to their website to send them an email, instead. This is the picture on their technical support page.
It all makes sense now. This guy is so happy because he just hangs up on people when they call in. I tell ya. Kids these days. No respect.
August 03, 2004
The Good Canadians.
In my last entry, I somehow managed to diss just about everyone. I think I have the spiritual gift of divisiveness.
In an effort to rectify at least some of the damage, I'd like to present to you now a couple of Canadian artists that I think are pretty great. They shatter my notions of Canada by being both famous (relatively speaking) and Christian (empirically speaking).
The Crew is a band from the Edmonton area that really has it going on. We got to hang out with these guys for the whole LCMS National Gathering in Orlando. I've got to say, they were a big part of why it was fun. These guys are fun-havers. They are ministry-minded. And, I'm sure, they are some other sort of hyphenated word. They are that good.
1/2 way through the event, The Crew gained a new member. This was obvious because, prior to the new member's appearance, The Crew was decidedly Dude. But, suddenly, there was a female presence. That presence was (and still is, I assume) Laurell Hubick. She's the real deal. Great Christian. Gentle spirit. Amazing voice. Not afraid to rock. What else would you want from a Canadian Christian Rock Star? Nothing, I tell you. OK, you might want her to have a really cool husband that also manages for her. Well, don't sweat it. Laurell's husband Jamie qualifies as a cool husband/manager.
Yes, I guess I owe Canada an apology. Apparently, they've turned out some pretty nice folks over the years. I don't know what I was thinking. Sorry, eh?